President Bush may be a lame duck, but that doesn't mean public access watchdogs are going to let him fly away without a fight.

A federal judge on Monday said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive could go ahead with their suit against the Bush administration in a case involving millions of missing e-mails.

The two groups claim that the White House didn't adequately preserve e-mails during the period of 2003 to 2005.

In his defense Bush said: "Oh, shucks guys, there wasn't anything interestin' goin' on during those years anyway!"

OK, actually the president hasn't even come up with that lame of an excuse. In fact, he hasn't come up with any excuse at all for the missing public records. Instead, his cronies contend that the courts don't have authority to review their compliance with public records law.

Checks and balances? We don't need no stinkin' checks and balances!

— ML

Labels: FOIA, open records, White House