While libs go gaga over the revelation that the White House used email accounts other than the “official ones”, the fact is that there’s a little hypocrisy going on here. First the story:

“WASHINGTON – The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Congressional investigators looking into the administration’s firing of eight federal prosecutors already had the nongovernmental e-mail accounts in their sights because some White House aides used them to help plan the U.S. attorneys’ ouster. Democrats were questioning whether the use of the GOP-provided e-mail accounts was proof that the firings were political.

Democrats also have been asking if White House officials are purposely conducting sensitive official presidential business via nongovernmental accounts to get around a law requiring preservation – and eventual disclosure – of presidential records. The announcement of the lost e-mails – a rare admission of error from the Bush White House at a delicate time for the administration’s relations with Democratically controlled Capitol Hill – gave new fodder for inquiry on this front.

“This sounds like the administration’s version of the dog ate my homework,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. “I am deeply disturbed that just when this administration is finally subjected to meaningful oversight, it cannot produce the necessary information.”

The Republican National Committee set up the accounts for about 20 Bush aides, such as Karl Rove and his deputies, who get involved in politics, spokesman Scott Stanzel said. Having the GOP create non-White House addresses and provide separate BlackBerries, laptops and other communications gear was designed to avoid running afoul of Hatch Act rules barring federal employees from engaging in political activities with government resources or on government time, he said.”

Why am I NOT suprised that AP’s Chief Bush Basher Jennifer Loven is writing this story

……I digress.

The fact is that according to some who know, witch hunters such as Leahy, Schumer, Conyers and others democrats also use DNC email accounts quite frequently, in some cases for official business.

Hell, I even have one.

Still, there is NO indication that anyone was trying to hide anything. This is just another example of how Democrats apply the burden of proof. If it came from Bush, it’s got to be criminal.

The White House response is both reasonable and plausible.

“This is entirely appropriate,” Stanzel said of the Bush White House practice.

He said staffers used their RNC accounts instead of White House accounts to discuss the prosecutor issue or conduct other official business for several reasons, including extra caution about complying with the Hatch Act as well as the convenience of using one account instead of several. Stanzel said he could not speak to whether anyone was intentionally trying to avoid White House archiving because he had not spoken to all those involved.

Stanzel said some e-mails have been lost because the White House lacked clear policies on complying with Presidential Records Act requirements.

Before 2004, for instance, e-mails to and from the accounts were typically automatically deleted every 30 days along with all other RNC e-mails. Even though that was changed in 2004, so that the White House staffers with those accounts were excluded from the RNC’s automatic deletion policy, some of their e-mails were lost anyway when individual aides deleted their own files, Stanzel said.”

Hell, it’s not like they lost 100 FBI files or anything like that.