Editing History, AKA Making Orwell Proud

In January, I pointed out that the Whitehouse had edited the (in)famous "Mission Accomplished" clip, removing the banner from the official image on the White House website. (See YouTube explanation.)

The latest news on rewriting history comes from Unbossed (tip), which reports that the transcripts of "most of [Vice President] Cheney's interviews from before 2006" have been removed from the White House website:

The WH website evidently has been busy scrubbing links to interviews and perhaps other public appearances by top officials. The operation has proceeded somewhat unevenly, though aggressively. Pretty clearly the WH wants to make it much harder to research the administration's past pronouncements, especially unscripted ones, and especially those pertaining to Iraq.

At least part of the White House website is accessible via the Internet Archive. And lots of material can be found, cached, via good Google searches.

Perhaps it's past time for multiple organizations to keep regular backups of all political websites. After all, with the new President in 2008, who knows what information from the White House and its executive agencies will remain online, in the digital public sphere?