What Embarassing Comment?

Obviously, the Bush administration can't airbush the "Mission Accomplished" sign to read "This Mission Accomplished." But what if government agencies wanted to edit out embarrassing comments in official records, or remove links to scientific studies that don't support their policies?

This isn't an academic question. The Washington Post has a good article where they summarize some of these changes made either under the direction of the White House or due to the agencies' own impetus.

I am sure that every administration tries to revise its words to one degree or another. But although the Internet has been around for over a decade, its reach only became powerful enough to motivate information scrubbing on the web in the past 5 or 6 years. The Bush administration is the first administration to have to deal with this issue fully.

And what pisses me off is that, given a chance to set a standard that will make it harder or easier for future presidents to do the same, they are leaning towards establishing lax standards through a creation of a culture where this type of thing is acceptable. (Isn't this the argument for more testing in schools and against Hollywood sex and violence?)

Sure, many top political appointees are replaced during new administrations, but the people actually removing the information aren't the agency heads. They're the web editors and the staff. The lower level people who tend to stay around from administration to administration and will do what they did before unless told otherwise. If the White House established a policy of "No content changes on the web for political purposes," it would make it more likely for these workers to protest attempts by future presidents, many of whom will give in to the same temptation.