(From the diaries -- Plutonium Page)
Newsweek:
Administration and congressional officials said that the administration provided congressional investigators earlier this year with official transcripts of the daily noon FEMA conference calls conducted before, during and after Katrina. But the administration initially told Congress that the transcript for the Aug. 29 call--the call congressional investigators were most curious about, given that it occurred as the hurricane was actually battering the Gulf Coast--did not exist, with officials initially telling Capitol Hill that someone at FEMA or Homeland Security forgot to push the button on a tape recorder.
"Everybody has been looking for that transcript," former FEMA chief Michael Brown said Wednesday.
A White House official unexpectedly e-mailed the transcript to NEWSWEEK earlier today Wednesday morning--initially without explaining that it was the missing transcript. Two officials familiar with congressional investigations said that the document was turned over to Capitol Hill investigators Tuesday night. Administration officials told both Congress and NEWSWEEK that FEMA officials in Atlanta had taped the Aug. 29 conference call by aiming a video camera at a TV screen rather than following the usual recording procedure. The videotape was subsequently discovered and transcribed.
. . . Congressional investigators say they can't recall seeing a transcript of this Aug. 31 conference call. An administration official said the White House is withholding the Aug. 31 transcript in order to protect the confidentiality of communications between the president and his advisers. Brown now says that after initially being deeply immersed in the crisis, "I think the president assumed, despite my warnings about FEMA's marginalization, that it could handle a catastrophic disaster, too. Clearly that was not the case because of budget and personnel cuts imposed by Homeland Security."
Salon:
Despite the impression left lingering by the nation's leading newspapers, a close scrutiny of the record fails to show that Hillary Clinton is guilty of any Whitewater crimes. In spite of the strenuous efforts of the independent counsel's lengthy, multimillion-dollar investigation, there still has not been any evidence presented to show that the first lady broke the law, or even did anything unethical.
Take the infamous missing billing records of Hillary Clinton's work for Madison Guaranty. When the records finally turned up in the White House in 1996, after having been subpoenaed two years earlier, charges of "obstruction of justice" filled the airwaves and the halls of the Republican Congress. New York Times columnist William Safire called the first lady a "congenital liar." Drowned out in the hubbub was the fact that the records actually substantiated in great detail what Hillary Clinton had repeatedly testified to, publicly and under oath.
All emphasis is mine. (But it should not be just mine.)
So you think your so-called Liberal Media will say anything about BushCo's "missing records" on Katrina? Or the fact the
some meetings with the President need to be "confidential" but some, those two days earlier, now do not? Think anyone will scream about "contempt of Congress"? Me neither.
That's why I am guilty of "contempt for the Media."
Update [2006-3-3 9:18:31 by Armando]: It goes without saying that there are differences to the Two Tales of Missing Records. One involved a failed land deal in Arkansas a decade prior to the Clintons going to the White House. The other involves the deaths of thousands of innocents and the destruction of one of America's greatest cities. You could see why the Media would treat them differently right? Sort of like they way they treat the rule of law. VERY IMPORTANT when it is about a private sexual affair. Meaningless when it involves torture and illegal spying. Perfectly understandable.