We are running out of ways to not get Mitt Romney's emails. Just as his emails from his years as Massachusetts governor have disappeared — his staff removed the messages from the server — the emails from the years he spent running the Salt Lake City Olympics appear to be lost, too. Archival records of the inner workings of the games were donated to the University of Utah, but emails, calendars, contracts, and financial documents were not included, ABC News reports. The school's library says that leaving that stuff out of the archives was a decision made by Olympic officials.

Private emails give us insight into how a person thinks when no one's looking, which is why they're often embarrassing, and doing something like staying signed in to Gmail on Mom's computer after a visit makes our skin crawl. It's easy to understand why a politician would want to keep them out of the public eye. Last month, the Wall Street Journal found a cache of Romney's long-lost gubernatorial emails, and they provided a bit of fodder for ridicule, like when he wrote an op-ed, and in asking for input, said, "as always, praise is welcome." But those emails offered an important insight in to serious public policy issues, too. They showed how Romney made the case for the individual mandate in his health care reform law, and that he thought denying care to those who couldn't pay was inhumane.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ereeve at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Elspeth Reeve