Following is an interchange between Tony Snow and a member of the White House press corps, that took place on March 21, 2007, during a press briefing by Snow. You can view the White House website for the complete transcript of the briefing. It is evidence of the fact that politicians use arguments at their convenience and they truly hate it when their opponents get to use those very arguments against them. Unfortunately, I've found that bloggers with both liberal and conservative leanings do the same thing. Would that all of us were simply willing to hold everyone to the same standard.
Q So, Tony, back when President Clinton was citing executive privilege to keep internal deliberations in that White House from being talked about in Congress, you wrote -- now famously --
MR. SNOW: I didn't say it was famous, Ed. I didn't get that kind of coverage at the time. (Laughter.)
Q Well, it's become more famous.
MR. SNOW: Is it making its way through the left-wing blogs?
Q It is. (Laughter.)
Q No, no. But you wrote quite eloquently about this. You said, "Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold the chief executive accountable. We would have a constitutional right to a coverup."
MR. SNOW: Right. Now let me --
Q So why were you wrong then and right now?
MR. SNOW: Because this is a not entirely analogous situation. I've just told you what we have, in fact, offered to make available to members of Congress. And what we are doing is we are holding apart confidential communications between advisors and the President. And that is pretty standard practice in White Houses. But, again --
Q It's exactly what the Clinton administration talked about.
MR. SNOW: Well, I'm not so sure. And I'll let others do the legal arguing on that. But the important point here is we're maintaining the presidential prerogatives and, at the same time, we're making available exhaustive -- we're offering basically to give them, exhaustively, communications that bear on this issue and also make the key players -- at least at the Justice Department and the people they said they wanted to hear from at the White House -- they're all going to be available. That's not a coverup. That is, in fact, a very open offer to get all the facts into the hands of the people who, presumably, want to figure out what the facts are.
The "famous" words about which that conversation took place were taken from a St. Louis Post-Dispatch item from March 29, 1998, written by Tony Snow:
Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.
Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.
One gets the impression that Team Clinton values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in Mr. Clinton will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold -- the rule of law.
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