Dick Cheney’s email is still missing for the week that pertains to the CIA leak that exposed Valerie Plame.  There have been explanations about the flawed email system in the White House, how 1000 days of email had vanished, later confined to approximately 470 days.

When Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald wanted to find out what was going on inside Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, the prosecutor in the CIA leak probe made a logical move. He dropped a grand jury subpoena on the White House for all the relevant e-mail.

One problem: Even though White House computer technicians hunted high and low, an entire week’s worth of e-mail from Cheney’s office was missing. The week was Sept. 30, 2003, to Oct. 6, 2003, the opening days of the Justice Department’s probe into whether anyone at the White House leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

It was disclosed Tuesday before the House Oversight Committee that there has been an ongoing problem with White email.  The system is flawed with failed back-ups.

For the first time, a former White House computer technician went public with the details. Steven McDevitt revealed in written statements submitted to Congress how a plan was developed to try to recover the missing e-mail for Fitzgerald.

Ultimately, 250 pages of electronic messages were retrieved from the personal e-mail accounts of officials in Cheney’s office, but whether that amounted to all the relevant e-mail is a question that may never be answered.

McDevitt made clear that it was a sensitive issue inside the White House.

“I worked with … White House Counsel on efforts to provide an explanation to the special prosecutor,” McDevitt wrote. “This included providing a briefing to the special prosecutor’s staff on this subject.”

McDevitt provided no details of the meetings with White House Counsel Harriet Miers and others in the counsel’s office in late 2005 and early 2006. The White House refused to comment on those meetings.

Of course, we all remember Harriet Miers, the counsel Bush nominated for Supreme Court Justice who under scrutiny withdrew her name faster than Bush nominated it.

The White House information manager (who doesn’t do such a good job) testified Tuesday:

“We are very energized about getting to the bottom of this” issue, Theresa Payton, chief information officer at the White House Office of Administration, testified to the committee.

Of course, by the time the email is found, if ever, the present administration will be long gone.  Free and clear.  Of course, I suppose we are back to “glitch”, that word that excuses everything that goes awry in Washington.

And, now, if I may wander from the present subject for a minute… I must mention the ”glitch” that outed the Hunstville, Alabama television station during Sunday night’s broadcast of the Don Sieglman’s now questionable conviction.  Of course, Karl Rove’s name was prominent in that expose.

I do suppose if one would like to sum up the Bush presidency in a single word, I would suggest “glitch”.