Archiving the 2006 Elections

"Illustrating the utter corruption and dishonesty of Bush followers, both in the Congress and in the pundit class, is accomplished simply by comparing what they said then to what they say now."

-- Glenn Greenwald, "A Trip Down Right-Wing Memory Lane," March 11, 2006

The amazing and astounding Way Back Machine, surely one of the world's largest archives of dead web sites, is asking for your help:

"Help us document the election! On November 7th, Americans will go to the polls and vote.

Internet Archive, using Archive-It, is asking our community at large to archive the websites commemorating this national election.

Please submit your election themed url below and check Archive-It in a few weeks to browse the collection."

The Way Back Machine already has "55 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago." Now, they want to add the real losers, as well as the winners, of the upcoming election.

You know the kind of losers we mean: those who are repeating "stay the course in Iraq" this year who will be denying it next ... the hypocrites who deny global warming today and will be sweating to hide that fact tomorrow... the Jeff Miller's of this world who voted for drilling off the coast of Pensacola while claiming it was "necessary" but who will be denying it when the first oil spill washes up on the beach.

You can help by the simple act of archiving web sites, speeches, newsletters, and other web-based position statements of the pols to keep them from re-writing history tomorrow. In this way, over the long run we can bring an end to the "deceitful ritual", as Glenn Greenwald puts it today, of politicians who try to re-cast themselves in the next election as something they weren't in this one.