NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Google Exposes Senator (Sloppily) Trying to Delete History for Birthers
Google Exposes Senator (Sloppily) Trying to Delete History for Birthers
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000846.html
Just when you think you've seen the ultimate in hypocrisy, that
perhaps it's impossible to become further depressed by politicians and
their duplicitous antics, out pops another example that digs the pit
ever deeper into the muck.
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch provides today's painful example. A GOP
Senate member since 1976, Hatch at one time seemed extremely
conservative. With some in the Republican party now rushing so far to
the right that they're leaving gamma rays in their wake, Hatch seems
considerably more moderate now by comparison.
This is a dilemma for Hatch, especially with Tea Party and other
assorted right-wing wackos out for his political blood.
Now it appears that Hatch has tried to delete a significant piece of
his own history in a calculated (but incredibly inept) attempt to
mollify the "birther" constituency -- and Google has helped to provide
the evidence.
By now you know all about the birthers and their nutty claims about
President Obama. As I long predicted, even the presentation of
Obama's long-form birth certificate has not quieted these fanatics.
Like the folks who insist the U.S. dynamited the World Trade Center,
or that computers can predict the future by playing "bible code"
crossword puzzle games with Old Testament texts, the birthers live in
their own special world of dreams, immune to logic or reality.
Hatch wants to keep his job -- and the birthers present a serious
problem for him. You see, back only eight years ago, when
Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger (for all his faults, still a quite
moderate, non-wacko guy) was in his ascendancy with the GOP, Hatch
proposed a constitutional amendment -- the "Equal Opportunity to
Govern Amendment" ["Presidential Eligibility Amendment"] -- to allow
persons born abroad (like Schwarzenegger) to become president!
( http://j.mp/jKNaU4 [Salon] )
This bit of history has become rather inconvenient for Hatch, when he
needs to appeal to Tea Party and birther zealots.
Hatch hasn't talked about his proposed amendment much recently, and he
appears to be in the process of trying to perform a "1984"
"Ministry of Truth" expunging of this particular aspect in his career.
Apparently until a couple of days ago, the details of Hatch's proposed
amendment were still available in the direct archives of his Web site
( http://j.mp/mcXqRd [U.S. Senate] ) listed along with his other
legislative efforts over the years. But there's a gap in that list of
pages now, seemingly where mention of the amendment used to be
present.
Right now as I type this, if you search on Google for this topic,
you'll can still immediately and easily find the relevant reference to
the amendment at Hatch's site -- and here is my copy of
those search results: http://j.mp/kkEWk6 (Lauren's Blog).
But what happens today when you follow the associated link back to the
Hatch site itself?
Wham! Bam! The link's flushed down the Can!
Hmm. Rather than being shown a proud presentation of Hatch's
legislative efforts on this subject, we're unceremoniously dumped onto
a back-end ColdFusion error page triggered by a mysteriously
missing file: http://j.mp/m2qtHx (Lauren's Blog).
Not very classy. Seriously sloppy in fact. And to what end?
As I've said so many times before -- the Web has a very, very long
memory. Trying to delete or block material from the Internet after it
has already been made public is a "double whammy" losing proposition.
You lose because copies of the information are almost certainly going
to still be out there. And you lose again -- big time -- because the
act of trying to delete or otherwise cover-up the embarrassing or
otherwise unwanted data can so easily draw much more attention and
scrutiny to the very topic that you wanted to bury -- as in this case.
I've always felt that Orrin Hatch was a decent enough person, even
though I've disagreed strongly with many of his political positions.
It's disappointing in the extreme to see him trying -- unsuccessfully
of course -- to run away from his own work in this manner.
If you've changed your positions on a topic, that's fine -- honest
evolution in thinking is nothing to be ashamed of -- quite the
opposite in fact. It's stagnation that we really have to fear in so
many cases.
But trying to manipulate history in the Internet age is a fool's game.
The Web giveth, and the Web can quite easily taketh away as well.
Honesty remains the best policy. Even today. Especially today.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://j.mp/laurenbuzz
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com