[willholloway]

George Bush didn't email either, he didn't want anyone reading 'his personal stuff'.

I always suspected he was trying to avoid Nixon's mistake of leaving the tape recording machine running that LBJ installed in the Oval office. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now.

Americans deserve full transparency from their government.

That said, with the adversarial nature of party politics and the limited sophistication of the public's political consciousness, not creating a persistent record may be a rational and understandable choice, even for a public servant with nothing to hide and every reason to feel proud of the work that they do.

[brown9-2]

Interestingly, George W Bush used to be big on personal email but decided to put a stop to it before he was inaugerated: http://gawker.com/5089305/presidents-gotta-give-up-the-e+mai...

I think though that his reasoning is not as cynical as you make it out - there would be some concern that personal email sent to the President from friends, family etc would fall under the official records act.