All those staffers were Clinton’s kids? Wow, I guess he really was a player!
Seriously, it’s not an apt analogy. My point was that if the staffers did damage, they should be held responsible. This has little or nothing to do with Clinton himself, and hence not newsworthy.
My kids are more my responsibility that the staffer’s are Clinton’s responsibilty.
Last time I checked, an employer is responsible for the actions of their employees. After all, that’s the basis for most anti-discrimination lawsuits.
I didn’t say that Bush whined. I said that someone in his White House did, and Ari Fleischer fueled it.
In the grander (heh) scheme of things, considering how many millions of dollars it would cost to completely replace the furnishings of the White Hous and associated office space, and considering that according to at least one report much of the damaged equipment was due to be replaced anyway, no, ten thousand in damage upon leaving a building occupied by the same tenants for eight years doesn’t seem like that big a deal. Were the pranks childish? Sure. Should it not have happened? Maybe not. Was it worth the foaming at the mouth snits that some people have had and apparently continue to have about it? No.
Oh, and the Clintons didn’t loot Air Force One, either.
The GAO didn’t say that Clinton staffers had done all the damage. They just said that was the total cost for repairs, but they didn’t know who had the damage, most of which was normal wear and tear and some petty theft by unknown inviduals. The GAO also clearly said the damage was not any more extensive than is normal for such transitions, including what Bush I staffers did to Clinton.
10,000 dollars worth of repairs is nothing in Washington. If it really bothers you, I’ll be happy to mail you the approximate 4/1000 of one cent that it cost you personally. What the hell, I’ll send you a whole penny to cover the interest.
BTW, the “Franken lies” site has been thoroughly debunked elsewhere on this board.
Well, to be fair, we are talking about the government here. That ten grand probably bought them a new coffee-maker and a handfull of screws…
You need to check again. there is no law which states that your employer is resonsible for any damage that you personally do to your work place.
If your burn down the building where you work is your boss going to go to jail for it? Don’t be ridiculous.
And what does anti-discrimination have to do with anything?
[hijack]
Because Franken is telling the truth, and frankenlies.com is the one lying to you.
There was also a thread in Great Debates a month or two ago that addressed the same topic, and the conclusion was the same: Al’s right, frankenlies.com is wrong. Time to reassess your sources, methinks.
[/hijack]
[LIST=a][li]Your figure is consistently misquoted thru out your post. It was $19,000, not ten thousand. You are low by about 90%. [/li][li]The GAO report did not conclude that the outgoing Bush administration had committed any vandalism. That accusation was made by the Clinton administration, but no evidence produced of vandalism. The weight of the evidence, in terms of number of eyewitness accounts, is that the Clinton damage, including known and established vandalism, was worse than the damage found in 1993, none of which was shown to be due to vandalism.[/li]
[li]Al Franken is a known and admitted liar. So is Bill Clinton. Both these facts are common knowledge, and there is no more need for a cite than there is that the sky is blue.[/LIST][/li]So, to sum up, did Clinton staffers commit deliberate acts of vandalism? Yes, they did.
Did the first Bush administration commit acts of vandalism? No evidence that they did has ever been produced; it is entirely an accusation made eight years after the fact by a Clinton White House staffer.
Was the damage caused by Clinton and his staff worse than the wear and tear produced by the first Bush administration? According to six disinterested witnesses, yes, it was, probably because the damage included deliberate vandalism as well as ordinary wear and tear.
According to one disinterested witness and the representative of an administration known for its prevarication and flexible approach to the truth, the damage from vandalism and ordinary wear and tear over eight years was roughly equal to that produced only by ordinary wear and tear in four years. I leave it to the reader to decide which is the more likely scenario.
Was the vandalism the GAO found that the Clinton staffers committed of a spitefully petty nature? Yes, it was - the moral equivalent of a monkey flinging feces around his cage.
Did George Bush focus and obsess over the damage? No, he did not, mentioning (after the report) that he felt it was time to “move on”.
Factual questions require factual answers. The factual answer to the question in the title is Yes.
Regards,
Shodan
The factual answer is that a few traditional pranks and some minor expected damage were grossly exaggerated by partisan buttwads into phony accusations of massive vandalism. Previous Bush staffers did the same thing but Clinton, unlike Bush did not waste anybody’s time and everybody’s money by launching a major investigation into it
Also, it is not “factual” to assert that Al Franken is a “known and admitted liar” and the swipe against Clinton was completely gratuitous in a GQ thread.
Because the answer is somewhat a matter of interpretation, this is really turning into a GD thread if not a Pit thread. The relevant links have been provided and people can make up their own minds.
How do you debunk a page that consists nearly entirely of quotes from the GAO report? Claiming that we don’t know who did the damage is mere obfuscation - who else would have had the opportunity to do it? Should we believe the Republicans did the damage themselves, so that they could blame Clinton?
Similarly, claiming that Bush I did similar damage is also deceptive. The GAO report accuses the Bush administration of no more than leaving furniture in the wrong room . But, assuming that Bush’s boys did engage in similar vandalism - then I’m equally disappointed that no one took them to task for it.
The GAO report indicates that 100 computer keyboards had to be replaced, that signs were removed, grafitti had to be removed, the furniture in six offices was rendered unusable (although this might have been normal wear and tear), phone lines were ripped out of the walls, requiring repair to the walls and wiring.
This ain’t random accusations, it’s the GAO confirming what repairs they had to make.
Actually TechTV collected W’s from users and did send them to the White House.
Now, back to counting the minutes till this thread goes to Great Debates…
Dio addressed the main points better than I could, but I have a related question for you, out of curiosity. Do you feel Bush should take the blame for going to war over intelligence errors, or should be allowed to pass the buck? Or is there a reason why the Clinton/vandalization issue is not comparable to the Bush/war situation, with regard to responsibility?
I apologize for the hijack.
But at risk of losing the OP entirely - yes, I think Bush should be held responsible for his actions, including what we will charitably call “intelligence failures”.
As for employers not being responsible for the actions of their employees - I’ll remember that the next time I hear of a multi-million dollar award from someone suing a corporation because of the actions of their employees - such as sexual harassment or discrimination.
I appreciate your consistancy, porkchop. So many people hold one guy responsible for everything under them, but give the guy from other party a pass on everything.
You do realize that statement is both accurate and ironic, right?
I was going to post somre more facts about this, but I see there’s little point - so let me just add that GAO calculated the costs of the repairs at $9,324 paid by GSA, $3,650 to $4,675 paid by EOP, and roughly $6,020 paid to AT&T to fix phone problems.
And far from dropping the matter, the White House criticized GAO in 2002 for under-reporting the damage. A letter from the White House Counsel is in the back of the GAO report; but certain obscenities were redacted by GAO (I’m not kidding).
Off to hit the “unsubscribe” button…
Getting back to actual facts – some posts stated that the damage was comparable to what had been down during previous administration transfers. So then, what vandalism took place earlier? What did Bush I find when he moved in, Carter, Clinton, etc.?
Muttrox,
Rather than having everyone repeat their arguments, you really might want to browse the GAO report.
I’m even going to bite my tongue and not tell you where the juicy bits are. 
Ironic how? You think I’m giving Clinton a pass on the vandalism, but blaming Bush on the Iraq issue?
Well, I guess I kinda am, to be honest. FWIW, I don’t think there were “intelligence failures”; my opinion right now is that the intelligence was given to the White House with the proper caveats, and Bush ignored what he didn’t want to hear. In other words, the failure was squarely with Bush.
Which is quite different from the vandalism, unless Bill was prying 'W’s off keyboards himself, or gave orders to do so.
“Aha!” you might be saying. “The analogy that Revtim himself brought up is one he himself doesn’t feel is accurate!”
Well, it’s accurate if you feel that the “intelligence errors” were made soley by the intelligence agencies, and Bush was fooled by inaccurate data.
'So many people hold one guy responsible for everything under them, but give the guy from other party a pass on everything."
Accurate and ironic in that this is rightly observed by both sides, much to the chagrin of each.