Amateur Hour at the White House

At NDN our tech team works hard to try and keep our email free of spam, and they do a damn decent job - thanks, Gillian and Ben.  The one drawback to our spam filter is that it blocks outgoing emails that contain offensive words.  So when I accidentally slip the kind of word that gets you detention in high school into an email, that email will be deleted.  That's ok, that's why I use my personal email account outside of work, and quote "Midnight Run" to my hearts content. 

Our friends at CREW have found a much more nefarious use of personal email accounts though.  It turns out that Karl Rove's Deputy Scott Jennings has been using a personal email -linked to a domain owned by the RNC no less - to send emails about the purged US Attorneys.  It isn't the first time Rove's office has pulled this kind of thing either.  Susan Ralston, another Rove Deputy, used to use a personal email account to get in touch with her old boss, Jack Abramoff.  The problem with all this personal email is that it may well amount to a purposful and illegal evasion of the Presidential Records Act, if Congress, a Special Prosecutor (fingers crossed), etc don't know about your personal email account, they can't read the damaging contents, right? 

The deceptive and maybe illegal practices of the Bush/Rove team are a a disgrace to the institution of the Presidency, and yet another sign of the moral degradation of the conservative movement.