Tony Snow's press conference today is really amusing. He's dancing all over the place making a big deal about transcripts and then asking why everyone is making a big deal about transcripts. Here's my attempt at a transcript of one of the last questions:
Question: Yesterday the president said and you repeated that the principle at stake here with executive privilege is that the president needs to get candid advise from his advisors, right?
Snow: What the president has talked about is privileged communications with close staff members, that is correct.
Question: It occurs to me earlier you were saying that when I asked about well was the president informed of this decision did the president sign off on the US Attorney's being fired, you said the president has no recollection of being informed of all of this.
Snow: Right.
Question: So were his advisors really advising him on this, is this really privileged communications involving the president and his advisors if the president wasn't looped in your saying on this decision...
Snow: That also falls into the intriguing question category
Question: Well I mean...
Snow: No your asking me... look Ed, there are a number of complex legal considerations here and I'm not gonna try to play junior lawyer, these are the sorta things that people are going to have an opportunity to talk about
Question: You're saying the president wasn't in the loop but you need to cite executive privilege for the president's communications
Snow: No what you are saying is were conversations that didn't take place privileged. Well no they didn't take place.
Question: So what are you protecting?
Snow: No, we're not... what we're trying to do is is to protect the ability of the American people to see folks in Washington get at the truth without in fact engaging in the kind of unseemly partisanship that is too often been a factor in recent political life.
Fun fun fun.
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