This is just too good not to post.
Tony Snow - Op-Ed - St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 29, 1998 :In the next few days Tony Snow is going to be yammering about the President's right to claim executive privilege in this case. I wonder if he will remember what he said back in 1998.
(HEADLINE: "Executive Privilege is a Dodge")
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.
Tip of the hat to Glen Greenwald at Salon for the Snow quote. Read the whole article. It concludes:
For better or worse, not only the right-wing noise machine, but also our nation's media elite, decreed long ago that when "executive privilege" is invoked for anything other than safeguarding national security or other state secrets, it is a corrupt tool designed to stifle The Truth. Here, it is being invoked by Bush to prevent his political advisor and White House counsel -- with no relationship to national security matters -- from testifying as to the reasons why the administration fired 8 U.S. attorneys and then lied about what they did repeatedly.
