Hollywood,

“But Knucklehead, if that’s the case, why didn’t he just redact the “holy shit” stuff?”

Because there must be some explainable reason to “redact” just in case an inquiring mind wants to know.

If you’ve worked on any document that has been reviewed by “higher ups” or other interested parties who do not have the responsibility to produce the document itself, you’ve seen how these things play out. The Higherups and Interstedparties will highlight this or underline that and scribble something in the margin that makes sense to whomever they are making the notation to but may make no sense whatsoever to somebody looking at things from outside the process of developing the document. And this works in a heirarchical fashion.

So, for example, a notation might be something like, “Marie, this puts the Big Dog on the spot, please rephrase” or “Harry, I don’t like this section but its your call. Just wanted to make sure you are aware” or “George, see minutes from mm/dd/yy PDB which contradict this section.”

The scribbles and drafts can indicate who knew what when and who suggested what changes and, potentially, why. Additionally such markups and drafts may contain links and pointers to different documents which may not be otherwise obvious.

Additionally to that, it would not be out of the question that the commission might have a full list of “titles” of the vetted docs in the archive and request from that list. If someone says, for example, “you released the final version of this document, but since I’m a very experienced committee member who knows how this works, I’d be interested in seeing any drafts that exist” which could potentially leave the vetter in a “hummannahummanna” position.

“And if you were a staffer for one of the Republicans on the Commission, anticipating that the blame game might be in play, wouldn’t you want all drafts of the after action report? I would.”

Ummmm…. haven’t you just made my point? If you’ve removed the drafts then you can answer the request, if it arises, with, “Sure, I’ll go vet those real quick… gee, the drafts seem to have been burn bagged or something… shit happens.”

“Isn’t this a little too fox guarding the hen house”

I don’t think anyone anywhere in any of these threads is claiming “The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth”. Its all, as I said above, the folks at Roger’s Place playing Clue. It is all speculation.

That said, given what little is known (and it ain’t much) this does have some look and feel of the fox having been sent to guard the henhouse, doesn’t it. If it walks like… quacks like… maybe it is.