George Orwell, 1984:
As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs — to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.
The Washington Post, 8/17/05:
A file folder containing papers from Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.’s work on affirmative action more than 20 years ago disappeared from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library after its review by two lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department in July, according to officials at the library and the National Archives and Records Administration.
Archivists said the lawyers returned the file but it now cannot be located. No duplicates of the folder’s contents were made before the lawyers’ review. Although one of the lawyers has assisted in the Archives’ attempt to reconstruct its contents from other files, officials have no way of independently verifying their effort was successful.
Maybe that file will turn up sometime in the next few days, tucked into the wrong folder or or otherwise misplaced. But this is a situation that is way too serious to be covered by a simple “whoops”. Even though many people have already resigned themselves to Roberts’ confirmation to the Supreme Court, the upcoming hearings will be of incredible importance. Much of Roberts’ judicial persona remains a blank slate, a situation that is only compounded by the White House’s stonewalling on the issue of releasing relevant documents. With questions swirling about Roberts’ views on issues such as affirmative action, it’s more than troubling that a file has conveniently disappeared after a visit by White House lawyers, a file that has no duplicates. Even if the file is reconstructed (with the help of those very same lawyers), there is no way to know if the information is even close to being accurate.
Surely, 1984 references have become a little clichéd. But when history has a chance to be rewritten, does anyone truly believe that this administration would take a pass?