Jan. 25, 2001 | 'Porn bombs' or 'spic and span'?
Some recent press reports suggest Bill Clinton and crew left behind a
different sort of legacy at the White House when they departed Saturday.
Weekend reports of Clinton aides gamely popping the "W" off of computer
keyboards quickly turned to murmurs of vandalism, with Drudge reporting that
the damage bordered on the criminal, with phone lines slashed, obscenities
scrawled on walls, something called "porn bombs" and obscene messages left on
the voice mail system, among other transgressions. Drudge also reported that
the incoming Bush administration is conducting a full investigation of these
actions.
But by Thursday afternoon, the buzz had died somewhat after White House press
secretary Ari Fleischer denied in his afternoon briefing that any
"investigation" was going on, though he did say Bush and company were busy
cataloging any damage that they had found in the White House. When he was
pressed on the details, Fleischer was determined not to be pinned down on any
specific incidents, claiming Bush didn't want to play the blame game on
transition messes. "The president understands that transitions can be times
of difficulty and strong emotion, and he's going to approach it in that
vein," he said.
Jake Siewert, the press secretary under Clinton, claims that there's not much
for Bush to forgive, at least not in the West Wing. "The place was really
spic and span," said Siewart, who says he was among the last to exit the
building Saturday.
Siewert didn't think Bush was owed an apology because a little disorder
should be expected during a presidential transition. "I was there for the
transition back in 1992, and it was a mess, too," he said. Unlike the new
Bushies, however, the Clintons didn't take it personally. "Imagine if you
were at a private corporation with about 400 people working there," he said.
"Then one day, they all left, and another 400 people came in and wanted to
run things. It would be chaos." --Alicia Montgomery [2:35 p.m. PST, January
26, 2001]
http://www.salon.com/politics/fix/2001/01/25/political_fix/index.html
