{"id":534,"date":"2007-07-27T03:29:48","date_gmt":"2007-07-27T10:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=534"},"modified":"2007-07-27T03:29:48","modified_gmt":"2007-07-27T10:29:48","slug":"the-not-issuing-orders-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=534","title":{"rendered":"The Not Issuing Orders Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

After having endured years of the comedy stylings of a bumbling War President who variously describes himself the Decider Guy<\/em> or the Commander Guy<\/em>, the circle has finally closed around an alter ego that is a far more believable persona for our little chameleon.<\/p>\n

Aboard Air Force One, the President’s press secretary, Tony Snow, presided over what he called a “speed gaggle<\/a>.”<\/em> Near the end, a reporter managed to squeeze out a probing question:<\/p>\n

Question:<\/strong> “Tony, if the President can order the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia not to pursue criminal contempt charges, doesn’t that sort of put him in the position of being able to determine unilaterally what executive privilege is?”<\/span><\/p>\n

That seems like a nicely pointed question that reasonably seeks an explanation for an apparent overreaching on the part of the White House. Let’s see how Tony handles it.<\/p>\n

Mr. Snow:<\/strong> “Well, the President can assert executive privilege, but you’ve misstated the way this works. In fact, the Department of Justice has the responsibility — the Department of Justice has already published an opinion; furthermore, there is a longstanding series of opinions out of the Department of Justice from Democratic and Republican administrations that talk about the inapplicability of criminal contempt of Congress citations when it comes to people asserting executive privilege.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, number one, the President is not issuing orders; this is something that falls under the purview of the Department of Justice. And number two, legal precedent all points in one way and it would not be the way contemplated by the House Judiciary Committee.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Holy Transformer, Batman! The Deciding Commander Guy has turned into the Not Issuing Orders Guy. What makes this even more fantabulous is that it is wholly untrue that the Department of Justice has responsibility for asserting executive privilege. That is an authority reserved for the President. But even if the DoJ did have jurisdiction, it would be just a tiny bit unseemly for them to exercise it when the subject of the investigation is the Attorney General himself.<\/p>\n

However, things may not be quite as bad as they appear when you consider that this Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, is uniquely qualified to assert a privilege he doesn’t have and then conveniently forget that he had done so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After having endured years of the comedy stylings of a bumbling War President who variously describes himself the Decider Guy or the Commander Guy, the circle has finally closed around an alter ego that is a far more believable persona for our little chameleon. Aboard Air Force One, the President’s press secretary, Tony Snow, presided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-humor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-8C","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":873,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=873","url_meta":{"origin":534,"position":0},"title":"Tony Snow Goes Over To The Dark Side – CNN","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/21\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"liberal\" media is at it again. CNN has just announced that it has hired former Bush press secretary, and Fox News anchor, Tony Snow, to be a conservative commentator. Snow: \"I'm delighted to be able to join CNN during the most exciting and unpredictable political year in memory. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":394,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=394","url_meta":{"origin":534,"position":1},"title":"Bush Names Bill O’Reilly To Fill In For Tony Snow","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/1\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Tony Snow's recently diagnosed recurrence of cancer could not have come at a worse time for the Bush White House. Any president always has a need for a spokesperson that can present his vision and keep a disorderly flock of reporters in line. But current events are weighing on this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1023,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1023","url_meta":{"origin":534,"position":2},"title":"McCain’s Spokesman Doth Protest Too Much","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/21\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"After months of assailing Barack Obama as an elitist, the truth started to leak out today when John McCain was asked how many homes he owns. McCain, inexplicably, couldn't answer the question and told the reporter that someone on his staff would get back to him. [The answer is seven,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1500,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1500","url_meta":{"origin":534,"position":3},"title":"Dick Cheney: Human Events’ Conservative Of The Year.","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/21\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Award season is in full swing, and the latest recipient of a year-end tribute is former Vice-President Dick Cheney. Human Events magazine has named Cheney \"Conservative of the Year.\" To be sure, this commendation lacks stature. After all, last year's winner was Sarah Palin. Chosen to pen Palin's accolades was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":297,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=297","url_meta":{"origin":534,"position":4},"title":"The White House’s Contempt For The People","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/12\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In his daily press briefing, Tony Snow inadvertantly revealed the administration's true feelings about the public they purport to serve. Question: ...it seems that the American people are also speaking very loudly. I'm wondering how much is he going to factor in what they seem to be saying, and is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=47","url_meta":{"origin":534,"position":5},"title":"President Bush Enlightens the RTNDA","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/7\/2005","format":false,"excerpt":"In a speech before the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the President displayed more of the insightful wisdom that has become a hallmark of his administration. The media professionals that comprised the audience held the President to the same standards they employ when shilling for him at their day jobs. So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}