Salon.com Politics | Bush's executive-privilege two-step The problem with this commitment to principle, however, is how ready the Bush White House is to abandon it for political convenience. Press reports have already noted the contrast between the White House's current stance on the Cheney records and the release last summer of transcripts of private conversations between former President Bill Clinton and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. But to date none has detailed the tortured, even comical lengths to which the Bush White House has gone in violating its own stated principles to try to embarrass Clinton.