UPDATE: Palin outdoes Blunt: Cost of e-mails is $15 million
Apparently there is a first-term Republican governor school that teaches something about e-mails and public disclosure. A day after Blunt settled at least part of his dispute over e-mails, MSNBC reports that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is still trying to charge $15 million for hers.
The similarity between the stories, in terms of the media’s attempts to get public documents, and the government’s attempts to get in the way, are, well, striking.
UPDATE: Ever vigilant, Blunt spokeswoman Jessica Robinson asked me to add a quote from the governor’s news release responding to the settlement agreement to this blog post. Here it is:
“Jay Nixon has refused to join our permanent e-mail retention system
and his office continues to destroy e-mails and other records while
Robin Carnahan is charging $91,000 for one e-mail account from her
office. We hope, but do not expect that the media will hold Nixon and
Carnahan accountable for the destruction of e-mails and failure to be as open and transparent as the governor’s office.”
As a side note, based on depositions in the Eckersley/Blunt/attorney general/Blunt/media/Blunt e-mail dispute, the new system put in place by Gov. Blunt after the controversy arose, is head and shoulders above the old system. It saves e-mails in real time as they arrive and are sent. Should the next governor, whomever that may be, decide to not use that system, there will be some, um, questions asked.
If the St. Louis Post Dispatch were a cable news network…
they would be MSNBC.
Nothing like tagging-off from a good highly-credible source like MSNBC.
s‘matter… McClatchy’s wires were down?
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We could probably dig this deep on republican and democrat governors across the land and find similar stories. What was the content of the many hours of e-mail transcripts Dick Cheney’s office “lost” is another question I’d like answered. It was a lot more than the 19 minutes of lost recordings that got Nixon impeached.
Democrats oh so badly want to re-write history as we have seen in this campaign.
It was 18 minutes and Nixon didn’t get impeached for those 18 missing minutes. There was enough info on the non-erased tapes to show Nixon’s obstruction of justice.
Nixon was never impeached by the House nor convicted by the Senate.
Bill Clinton on the other hand, oops perhaps poor choice of words, was impeached by the House but not convicted by the spineless Senate.
Perhaps Democrats could just get somebody to hack into her email account, that way they could get it for free. Oh, wait, they already did that …
Oh, sorry, Jackson. I stand corrected. Nixon resigned in disgrace before he could be impeached. I didn’t want to re-write history, but it looks like you are trying to. Although since you bring up the topic, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act in 1978 so that recorded conversations and documents are not destroyed or lost. Seems a shame then that the Bush White House has conveniently “lost” over five million e-mails betwen March 2003 and October 2005. This is a clear violation of the Presidential Records Act and a blatant attempt by the Bush team to re-write history, or at least alter it before it is written. But I suppose ordering the use of torture would constitute war crimes and, well hell yes I’d try and cover that up too.
MLGB Do you not have access to google or wikipedia or ?? … something you can check before spouting off with the you misstatements ?
This report could’ve been about you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvl0lqhCVio
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Hey Tony, Robin Carnahan is charging $91,000 for one e-mail account from her office. Where’s the report on that? No updates forthcoming? The PD is so in the tank for the Dems it’s bordering on absurdity…
You right wingers are so funny. All you ever do is write comments that have nothing to do with the blog. You can’t defend or even properly discuss the issue at hand, so you weakly try to distract from it.
“Liberal media! Remember Bill Clinton! Nuh-uh, it was 18 minutes, not 19!Some kid hacked into Palin’s email - must have been the Democrats! You’re stupid, you shouldn’t vote! Terrorists!” and on, and on, and on…
The PD (and the AP) has a duty to report on this, it is a legitimate concern for both Democrats and Republicans - the only reason to discourage the release of business-related communications is because there is something to hide, just as mlgb said. And as he mentioned, Cheney is hiding a LOT of communications. The government works for us, WE THE PEOPLE, and we have every right to be able to examine how they do their business - OUR business. They owe it to us, as our representatives, to be transparent.
That’s all. Now you can all go back to changing the subject to ACORN, Clinton, Ayers, etc., etc.
There you go again BobZZZzzz. Just tell me I’m wrong but don’t provide anything in rebuttal. That’s how McCain handled the debates and now he’s on his way to being a mere historical footnote.