FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
Nearly a year after Pres. George W. Bush left office - computer technicians have found 22 million e-mails that his administration said were missing.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/12/15/art.bush.cabinet.jpg caption="(L to R) Condoleeza Rice, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld."]
Two watchdog groups - who had sued over these documents - say the e-mails had been "mislabeled and effectively lost."
But - it could still be years before the public gets to see any of this stuff. First they have to go through the National Archives - they decide which e-mails get released. Records from the Bush White House won't be available until 2014 - at the earliest.
A former spokesman for Bush says too much is being made of the discovery of these e-mails, and that misleading statements about the former administration show "a continued anti-Bush agenda." What he fails to mention is that there is a law that says records of the president must be preserved. But then the Bush White House often ignored laws when it was convenient for them to do so.
You suppose it's just coincidence that the 22 million e-mails from 2003 to 2005 cover some pretty significant periods of history - including the months leading up to the Iraq war, the firings of U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration and the announcement of a criminal investigation into the leaking of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson's name? Sure.
Here’s my question to you: Will the public ever get the truth of what happened during the Bush administration?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Hugo from Hoboken, New Jersey writes:
I would say we have most of the truth already: George Bush was an incompetent idiot and Dick Cheney his evil guru. Together they had the U.S. invade the wrong country, let its main enemy escape, made the rest of the world hate America and created the most serious economic meltdown since the Great Depression. If the U.S. never resumes its leadership in the world, it will be because of these two clowns. What other truth is there?
Jeff from Boulder, Colorado writes:
We're back on the Bush administration again? This is getting tiresome. This email "discovery" is just an attempt to shift focus from the current administration's inability to get anything done.
Joe from Front Royal, Virginia writes:
Jack, It took some time to find these, that is if they were ever lost or hidden. I am not sure if we really want to know what was in them. They may harm the country more.
Tom from Atlanta writes:
Yes they will. The truth always comes out. The problem is, by then they won't care. We're already just 12 months past, and people have forgotten the Republicans and George W. Bush entirely, and they’re all ready to elect them again.
Luci from Illinois writes:
It depends on who is in office in 2014. If the Republicans are in office, we will never get to see what is in these e-mails. I only hope I live long enough to get to know what they were hiding. Then I hope they all get put in prison for many years.
Chuck writes:
If half of what I suspect is the truth, you really can't handle the truth.