Expletives asterisked
[ by Charles Cameron — language, Sir, such language! ]
.
The most interesting redactions in the entire Mueller affair are these, signifying as they do the tenor of President Trump and his administration.
The first redaction is not made under a claim of executive privilege:
Nor is the presidential attorney’s remark noted here redacted on grounds of attorney-client privilege:
Such language was already in Use in Nixon’s Oval Office (and no doubt before), and the words “expletive deleted” were familiar to me from that era in some ways so parallel to our own. “Redacted” however is the word bandied about in our own day, and it took me a while to realize that all those asterisks in fact represent “expletives redacted”..
Language, my enduring love.
