A Hollow Victory For Starr

A court ruling may mean Secret Service agents have to testify in the Monica Lewinsky matter, but chances are they won't have much to say. A commentary by CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer.

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr won a victory this week when an appeals court ruled he had the right to question the president's secret-service bodyguards.

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The secret service fought the decision saying that if agents were required to tell what they knew about a president's activities, presidents wouldn't trust them, and that would make a president harder to guard. I doubt it myself. But even so, it's hard to see how the courts could have ruled otherwise.

After all, the Supreme Court ordered Richard Nixon to hand over tapes of his most intimate conversations. How could presidential bodyguards be given a right to confidentiality the president himself does not enjoy?

Still, my guess is that this will be a fairly hollow victory for Starr that won't yield much information. Let's face it. For all their bravery and willingness to put their lives on the line, secret-service agents spend a lot of time just standing there watching the door.

I once asked a friend in the secret service what his job was like and he said, "imagine it this way: Get up in the morning, shave, shower, put on your best suit, and then go stand in the back yard and hope nothing happens." Secret-service agents may know who goes into a room, but they don't know much about what happens behind closed doors.

If anything did happen between the president and Monica Lewinsky, you have to believe they closed the door.