Oh man. This one's worth transcribing off of the DVR. I was watching CNN when they broke into International coverage to broadcast today's White House press briefing with Tony Snow. The subject is, of course, Alberto Gonzales and his abyssmal tesitmony before Congress and the contradiction made by Mueller's statements before the House (there's a good article here if you've been out of commission or otherwise living under a rock).
Snow has simultaneously taken parsing and whining to new and distressing levels in how he responded to questions from reporters on the subject. After the fold, I've done a live transcription of primarily (but not exclusively) David Gregory's questions and Snow's "answers". I have been as accurate as possible, but some errors may be present. Gird your loins and follow me.
Joining the PC, already in progress...
SNOW: ...legality of that program. Now, when you talk about the Terrorist Surveillance Program - there are many intelligence programs within the American government - we're talking about a very thin slice limited to exactly what I was telling you about. Which is monitoring communications between Al Qaeda or suspected Al Qaeda affiliates - one in the United States, one overseas. And that's... so when the Attorney General talks about TSP, that's precisely what he's discussing.
REPORTER [unidentified]: So - ok. What you're saying, then, is when the Attorney General and Mueller were talking about - you - in the consideration of the Administration they're talking about two different things because one what before it was disclosed and one was after?
SNOW: No. Let me just say, this is where there are a broad range of intelligence activities that the government is involved in. And - it - from time to time there are going to be disputes about those intelligence activities. But again - with the Terrorist Surveillance Program - defined very narrowly and carefully - there have been no disputes about that.
What I think the reporter was referring to was some statements made by Snow and/or the White House indicating that the program in question is different depending on when the program was discussed, specifically before it was outed in the press or after. Hold onto that thought, because Snow refers to it again later in David Gregory's questions.
And not for nothing, Snow's response to that made absolutely no sense, and the reference to a "broad range of intelligence activities" made me sick to my stomach.
Continuing:
REPORTER [unidentified]: And the brefing in 2004 was about that program, or about something else?
SNOW: Again. I don't want to go too much into the briefing. It was a - the answer to your question is yes.
Or maybe not, depending on how much reporters try to pin Snow down:
REPORTER [unidentified]: About that program in a different iteration?
SNOW: No. You're asking a different question than what I said yes to.
Uh...
REPORTER [David Gregory]: Well let me try this and ask a broader question. My understanding is, this is a disagreement about the how and not the what. How you arrived at some of the targets you were going to monitor. And that ultimately it had to do with this program.
SNOW: Again David, It... thi - when you talk about this program - being very specific here - this program, monitoring those Al Qaeda conversations, trying to find out what Al Qaeda is communicating [inaudible]...
REPORTER [David Gregory]: ...what Mueller was referring to, what Comey was referring to -
SNOW: What he referred to was a National Security Agency program. This - because there are lots of programs, lots of activities that are used to try to protect American citizens - this narrow slice, this bit of surveillance on Al Qaeda was not itself - any any point - a subject of controversy legal or otherwise.
I'd like to note that Snow doesn't clarify who "he" is - Mueller, Comey, or Gonzales?
REPORTER [David Gregory]: But the gathering of names of people that you were going to surveil which was part of that effort was something ...
SNOW: Well again - you're asking me to get into [inaudible] and I can't.
REPORTER [David Gregory]: But isn't the issue here that, at the most charitable explanation is that the Attorney General is trying to parse this discussion and to come to a conclusion that there was not a disagreement about this, and there was?
SNOW: No, I think that - I think that the Attorney General had in mind exactly what I was talking about which was this particular program, which was not - and I've described it as a narrow program but it was a significant program - but there were many other efforts on the part of the Federal government to protect the American people. I cannot get into operational discussions such as the one that you've raised, but again to the question of the propriety of this program - were there concerns about the legality of a program that allowed US authorities - the President to go ahead and approve attempts to intercept communications between these folks - that simply was not a matter of concern. I'm not going...
REPORTER [David Gregory]: But you had - the threat of mass resignations in the Justice Department from the head of the FBI. How can you say there was not a disagreement about ...
SNOW: ...this is where you get into the fact that there was a possibility that there were broader discussions, then I'm not going to get in to [inaudible] context of those. What is worth noting is that whatever concerns may have raised, as have been testified by the former acting head of the Justice Department were in fact resolved. And whatever concerns they had were addressed and addressed appropriately and to ... satisfaction.
Ah. Ok. So my interpretation of Snow's statement is that even if there were disagreements on some nebulous and narrow program (which may or may not be the same TSP that has been referenced since the TSP itself was outed, or not, depending on the definition of "TSP"), those disagreements were resolved. The logical conclusion, therefore, is that any discussion or pressure or potentially illegal conduct that occurred before the resolution is moot. Does that sound like a fair interpretation of his "answer"?
REPORTER [David Gregory]: Mueller did not contradict the Attorney General.
SNOW: It - no, we don't think he did.
That's a wildly different statement than "no". I don't necessarily think Oswald was the lone gunman, but that doesn't mean that, in reality, he wasn't.
REPORTER: The Attorney General has told the truth to the American people and to Congress about this program.
SNOW: ...rather than call it activities, and the problem again is you're applying retroactively a label to a program that didn't even have that label at the time this conversation was taking place - and so I cannot - I don't want to stand here as the judge to try to intrpret for you what everybody means when they use that term, when they use Terrorist Surveillance Program because it may have different [inaudible] to different people. I've told you the narrow construction that the Attorney General has used. And this gets us back into this situation of - I understand that it's unsatisfactory because there are lots of questions raised, and the vast majority of those, we're not going to be in a position to answer simply because they do involve matters of classification that we cannot or will not discuss publicly.
We're back to this sliding time/space continuum thing. For some reason the when of the discussion (before it had a label) is materially related to whether or not the discussion itself is in alignment with Gonzales' contradictory statements. Someone call Ohura. Maybe she can explain.
This is where the parsing abruptly stopped and whining began.
REPORTER [David Gregory]: ...one final - why does the President believe that the Attorney General does not reflect badly on the Justice Department and on this White House with the way he's handled questions related to this and other matters?
SNOW: Well again - becuase he has testified truthfully and tried to be very accurate what also happens is - you've got an interesting situation when members of Congress knowing that somebody's constrained by matters of classification they can ask very broad questions, and those are questions they know the person on the other side cannot answer thoroughly in open session. You can create any kind of perception you want by saying 'well can't you finish the answer' or 'why don't you tell us this' or 'why don't you tell us that' knowing perfectly well that there are very real constraints there and - you know - there's no way that that is not going to create uncomfortable moments for the person sitting in the chair but you simply cannot give a full and complete answer because to do so would compromise American security.
There were more references of this ilk later in the briefing - "Poor Alberto Gonzales. He's being set up to be a political tool. They know he can't answer questions and only do so to make him look bad. He's innocent and truthful in all of this and Democrats are just playing politics."
Except it's not just Democrats, is it? Nope.
And now, proof that George Bush is actively smoking crack:
REPORTER [David Gregory]: Does the President believe that Alberto Gonzales' credibiity is still intact.
SNOW: Yes.
Well then. The PC continued a while after this, but you get a sense of how this is starting to spiral out of control. I've never heard such a load of horseshit in my life, when I talk to my mother later tonight, I'll be sure to mention it to her so that the NSA catches it via the "TSP" (before AND after).
Update [2007-7-27 14:37:56 by RenaRF]: Ah... Clem Yeobright has posted a poll in a comment below - I am stealing it shamelessly (with credit given!) and attaching it to the diary.