The White House Press Briefings can be a lot of fun. I don't usually bother with the answers because any relationship between an answer by this White House and the actual truth is purely a coincidence.
The questions are a different thing, because they tell us whether the MSM is getting it. They had a pretty good day today tying old Tony in knots. Highlights after the flip include asking Tony why they can claim executive privilege if Bush doesn't remember anybody talking to him, Tony getting out from under his own opinion piece rejecting executive privilege during the Clinton years, and Tony not explaining an 18 day gap in the e-mails right before the firing.
A pattern of secrecy:
Q What do you say to criticism that this is part of a pattern of secrecy that goes back to the early days in the administration when Vice President Cheney's energy task force wouldn't disclose its members?
On getting the truth out:
Q But, Tony, in the interest of getting at the truth, in the interest of accuracy, why not have an official, indisputable record of what was said -- a transcript?
Q Tony, Congress has held hearings from time immemorial. Presidents have even gone to testify there. What would make this a political circus?
MR. SNOW: Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?
Q These are your terms.
MR. SNOW: You do not believe that there would be a political circus?
Q -- more so, or less, than any other time in its history?
Q Tony, that actually goes to a question I have. Presidential aides have testified in the past when there was evidence of impropriety. April mentioned Watergate. This is a case in which the White House is asserting that there is no evidence of impropriety and that nothing was done wrong. So how do you face the American public and say, we're telling you we didn't do anything wrong, but we won't let the top advisors to the President speak publicly about it?
Q Well, the Congress wants testimony in public, and the Congress feels that it has been misled by the administration. How do you avoid the appearance of stonewalling if you don't send people up there to speak publicly?
Q On that very point, you have a transcript right here, there's a stenographer every day at this briefing, because you don't want us to run out and say, Tony said this, and someone else says, no, Tony said that. Why do you have a transcript of this briefing every day, and you won't have a transcript of what Karl Rove is going to tell Congress?
Q With regard to the oath, you said that they're obliged to tell the truth anyway. And regular Americans are obliged to tell the truth anyway any time when they take oaths. What makes these people different? It seems almost as though they're elite and they don't have to take oaths, whereas regular people have to take oaths.
On the gap:
Q Okay. You keep saying the Justice Department, the response -- that these emails, the 3,000 pages is unprecedented, is very responsive. Why, then, is there this gap from mid-November to about December 4th, right before the actual firings? Why is there a gap in the emails?
MR. SNOW: I don't know. Why don't you ask them?
Q Tony, just for the record, this gap between mid-November and early December, is there a gap because there are no emails pertaining to this situation between then, or are there more emails to come out?
MR. SNOW: That I don't know. Like I said, that's why I think you need to go back and ask the Department of Justice. They've done the document production; we have not been in charge of it. I would refer questions to them.
On the good old days:
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.
On hiding e-mail:
Q Does Karl Rove have a private email address at the RNC?
On executive privilege without the executive:
Q Just to follow up on one point earlier, yesterday the President said, and you've repeated, that the principle at stake here with executive privilege is that the President needs to get candid advice from his advisors, right?
MR. SNOW: What the President has talked about is privileged communications with close staff members, that is correct.
Q But earlier you were saying that, when I asked about, well, was the President informed of this decision, did the President sign off on U.S. attorneys being fired, you said the President has no recollection of being informed of all this.
MR. SNOW: Correct.
Q So were his advisors really advising him on this? Is this really privileged communication involving the President and his advisors, if the President wasn't looped in, you're saying, on this decision? So it was other people --
MR. SNOW: Well, that also falls into the intriguing question category.
Q But, I mean --
MR. SNOW: No, you're asking -- you're asking me to -- look, Ed, there are a number of complex legal considerations in here, and I'm not going to try to play junior lawyer. These are the sort of things that people are going to have an opportunity to talk about.
Q But aren't you having it both ways? If you're saying the President wasn't in the loop, but we need to cite executive privilege for the President's communications --
MR. SNOW: No, what you're -- what you are saying is, are conversations that didn't take place privileged? Well, no -- they didn't take place.
Q So what are you protecting, if they didn't take place?
And snark, just for fun:
Q I just want to be clear on something. On the "extraordinarily generous offer," which heretofore shall be known as "EGO" -- (laughter) -- so that would be withdrawn if the subpoenas are issued?