The Bible says Nathanael of old had no guile. He likely couldn't have kept a job in the Clinton administration.
It defended last week its use of guile, chicanery, cunning and subterfuge - which Republicans simply call lies - as justifiable and necessary to the creation the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.Of course, documents pried loose by threatened subpoenas also made the administration acknowledge much more deception than it previously had done. And Republicans howl that means they can't trust the administration's promises about monument management.
What isn't in question is that the administration told some whoppers. All seem to acknowledge that and argue only over whether it was justifiable.
Take for example the week before Clinton formed the monument. Utah officials, who heard about it through a press leak, were assured by the administration that nothing was imminent, that it was only an early stage idea and no decisions had been made.
The fact that was pure deceit was obvious when the monument was signed into law days later - in Arizona.
But even deeper deception became evident last week when documents showed the administration had actually studied forming the monument for more than a year and for months had discussed exactly when to announce it for the greatest political benefit.
It had even considered forming it in April 1996 - instead of September when it was later created - to coincide with Earth Day.
And while the administration didn't consult with Utah officials, it did talk with Democratic governors and members of Congress from other Western states - and some environmental groups (such as the Sierra Club) and celebrities (such as Robert Redford) - to gauge how well it would play politically.
And it told those groups to keep things quiet. One memo, for example, warned a University of Colorado professor who was drafting the monument proclamation not to leak word or he might doom the monument.
Katie McGinty, chairwoman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality, testified the administration worried that the Utah congressional delegation and its allies could kill the monument if word leaked too soon - and felt they would surely try.
So she said the ultimate protection of the land against Utah leaders - who often favor development and want less wilderness than the administration - justified the secrecy.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt even said if he had been the victim of such secrecy when he was governor of Arizona, he would not have been upset. Most everyone else laughed at another apparent whopper.
While the monument created by such guile is apparently here to stay, Republicans worry Clinton lied about his plans for it.
Many of the promises made in the speech before he signed the monument into law are not included in the actual proclamation.
For example, Clinton promised to continue "multiple uses," which Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, said most Westerners recognize as a legal term for everything from hunting to grazing, mining and oil drilling.
But Babbitt told Congress people "obviously" should have realized it didn't include new mineral and oil extraction because Clinton was forming the monument mainly to stop a large planned coal mine.
He said the president simply used the wrong term and should have said some multiple use would continue. Bennett said it was more likely that the president intentionally chose such phrasing to lull Utahns into false security about the future of the area.
So Bennett and the Utah delegation are pushing a bill they say would write into law the plain-language meaning of promises Clinton made. Babbitt says it goes too far and would allow extreme uses that would make the monument disappear in all but name.
Bennett used an interesting tactic to counter that. He urged Babbitt to propose any phrasing the administration wants to ensure the president's real promises are kept. Babbitt declined, saying the administration doesn't want anything codified until after a management plan is developed over three years.
Of course, people shouldn't be truly afraid to write their promises into law - unless they don't want to keep them. And given the administration's admission of its less than Nathanael-like history of guile, Republicans suspect that's the case.