C.I. uses it when noting some statement that used to be at the White House website. Before Team Obama decided to scrub it. Those pages were historical and there was no reason to wipe them away. The Justice Department, for example, has not wiped its past pages away from either the previous administration or the Clinton administration.
Team Obama came in and didn't just introduce snark to the White House website (we loathe George W. Bush but, had we been writing for the US White House website, we wouldn't have used the language they did -- it was beneath the office), they also wiped away history.
Bully Boy Bush lied every day of the week. And why anyone would want to destroy that record is beyond us although we'd guess that when you are, in fact, the third term of the Bush administration, you don't want people to easily compare your actions to those of the person you've just replaced.
We're not liking Barack Obama anymore than we did George W. Bush at this point. But when he leaves the White House (in 2013 or 2017), we hope the next administration has the good sense to preserve the press briefings and official statements online because those are history.
Around the country, you'll find various landmarks that were preserved for historical reasons. It's amazing to us that no one has yet to demand that the online White House preserve all documents and maintain them for what they are -- a part of our nation's history.
