The ship does not go down with its captain

Let's say I'm the head of a major institution, and as such, I'm ultimately responsible for the actions of my staff/supporters/minions (think Enron's Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling). Let's further hypothesize that I was being tried for destroying electronic records...in fact...let me restate that...let's say there were rumblings of a suit being brought against me, so in anticipation of such action I went ahead and destroyed the files. Of course, I probably had some kind of 'legitimate' reason to excuse the destruction of these files - whoops! Sorry! I was just following industry best practices...what's that over there? LOOK OUT! Killer terrorists! Threat level omega-seven-polka-dot-bravo!

I'm getting ahead of myself...

You'd think I was reprehensible, correct? You'd think I was sneaky and conniving, right? You'd think that I thought I was above the law by doing such a thing. You'd think that I should be brought to justice and made accountable for my actions, even though I might not have personally put the papers into the shredders, right? After all, even though I might possess 'plausible deniability', the fact that I run the ship should make me responsible, or are we saying that the laws in the country don't apply to me. Yes, I think that's what we're saying.
At least that seems to be the reasoning behind the latest American freedom-'n-democracy ass-raping fiasco perpetrated by the White House. WTF!?

WASHINGTON -- The White House acknowledges recycling backup computer tapes of e-mail, a practice that may have wiped out many electronic messages from the early years of the Bush administration, including some pertaining to the CIA leak case.

The disclosure about recycled backup tapes came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it previously had refused to provide.

Before October 2003, the White House recycled its backup tapes "consistent with industry best practices," according to a sworn statement by a White House aide. The White House started preserving backup tapes in October 2003, which would have been shortly after the start of the probe into who outed CIA operative Valerie Plame in July of that year.

The backup tapes, which also contain electronic documents in addition to e-mail, are the last line of defense for saving electronic records.
...
Mr. Fratto, the White House spokesman, said that "there is no basis to say that the White House has destroyed any evidence or engaged in any misconduct."

No basis...hmm...I'm reasoning those words were used because it hasn't been proven that anything was 'destroyed', at least in the linguistically accurate perception of the word. I imagine it was just serendipitous that the 'recycling' of the tapes occurred just before a court-order demanding said 'recycled' tapes be turned over.

You know what? I am sick to death of this administration. It's not that it's Republican. There are plenty of great Republicans out there. I heart Republicans. I'm sick of this administration's stomping on the vestiges of our integrity. I'm tired of blowing taxpayer dollars on issues that don't benefit the nation, when we're in the middle of a mortgage collapse and financial institutions are recording record losses (from over a 100 year period) and when our educational system is stuck in the 1950s and when we can't seem to produce enough effective domestic college graduates. I'm sick of the lies and false-truths and truthery and strategery and the fact that the President of the effing United States of America sounds like a g-d idiot when he opens that effing hole in his face. STFU Dubya.
While the bar for Presidential approval has been lowered tremendously, and we're on the brink of electing a new President, and although I'm optimistic about the future, I think we need to expect more from our elected officials, and insist on running a government that's less focused on infiltrating and more cognizant about stabilizing and scaling global socio-economic growth. Just a thought. Just throwing it out there, cuz, y'know...things are pretty crappy right now. Never hurts to dream, right? Obama anyone? The whole 'audacity of hope' notion is very appealing compared to the scary faith infused dogmas of Huck or baseball Mitt. It's like the GOP reasoned with all the instability in the Middle East, which this administration helped fuel (btw), the U.S. needs to further polarize itself and become more militaristic and ethno/faith-centric, so they unleash Huckabee and Romney.

[ending soapbox transmission now]