IT SHOULD be referred to as "The un-scandal." Conservatives endlessly berated the Clinton administration for allegedly vandalizing executive offices before the presidential transition in January 2001. However, a 220-page General Accounting Office report - commissioned by staunch Clinton foe Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), and released last week - found that there was very little evidence of vandalism and deliberate damage done to the offices. But through the way they've handled the "scandal," the media and the Bush administration already have indoctrinated Clinton's guilt into the minds of Americans, regardless of the facts.
Barr has not let the findings of the GAO stop him from distorting the facts to smear Clinton. One of Clinton's most bitter enemies in Congress and a leader of the impeachment proceedings against the former president, Barr has used the most current study to fire back at Clinton. "No one should get away with deliberately vandalizing one of our country's most sacred public monuments - the White House," Barr asserted in an April 19 article in The Washington Times. The Clintons, he says, "consistently refuse to take any responsibility for their actions."
There's only one problem. The Times reports that by the time the article had gone to print, Barr hadn't even read the report himself. His attacks on Clinton weren't based on any facts - just empty rhetoric.
Unfortunately, such allegations have been prevalent throughout the entire "scandal." According to the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) Web site, newspaper columnist Tony Snow wrote that Air Force One "looked as if it had been stripped by a skilled band of thieves - or perhaps wrecked by a trailer park twister." However, these allegations were false. There was no evidence of this occurring, and the Air Force denied that it ever happened.
Likewise, conservatives lauded Bush's decision not to use this attack to blame the Clintons. Snow, for example, said on his FOX News show on Jan. 28, 2001, that "the Bush team did something very wise. It did nothing, and that was the right choice." In the minds of Clinton-bashers, Bush and his administration was just refusing to dignify what Clinton's administration had done - another example of Bush's purported new tone in Washington.
But the Bush administration didn't make any formal accusations because they couldn't - it was Barr who demanded the report, unaware that it would essentially exonerate the Clintons. However, when the story broke in January 2001, the media devoured the story, with editorials all over the country condemning the Clintons. According to salon.com, the Houston Chronicle said that the Clintons' alleged vandalism came as "little surprise." The Indianapolis Star complained that Bush shouldn't hold back, claiming that "these vandals deserve to be exposed."
The GAO report, if anything, documents the lies and ineptitude of the Bush administration in spreading and dealing with this situation. For instance, one incoming Bush staffer reported that 18 keyboards in her office were defaced and vandalized. The problem? There were only 12 keyboards in the office.
Additionally, the issue of "W" keys on keyboards removed, whited out, or glued down has been grossly exaggerated. According to the GAO report, one-third to one-half of the keyboards would have had to been replaced "because of their age." Additionally, many other keyboards were being disposed because of "wear and tear." In other words, much of the cost can be attributed to reasons other than alleged vandalism.
Likewise, Bush staffers reported that "a glass desk top was smashed ... and that desks and other furniture were overturned in six offices." It was enough for Paula Zahn to remark on her FOX News show, "this is the White House, for God's sakes. We're not talking about people living in a fraternity," after the story broke Jan. 26, 2001.
Well, according to the GAO report, even the management office director for the Executive Office Building has attributed the damage to "wear and tear and neglect and not something intentional." The broken desktop was attributed to a cleaning lady. According to the director of the General Services Administration's White House service center, the furniture "could have been overturned for a variety of reasons ... such as to reach electrical or computer connections."
The glut of media coverage when the story broke and the overwhelming consensus that Clinton was guilty has pervaded into the minds of Americans. There has little to no coverage of this GAO report in the media, and Clinton will be remembered for vandalizing the White House, even though the evidence clearly shows otherwise.
The bottom line is that these allegations were for the most part fabricated, and the GAO report has shown so. But thanks to years and years of dirty politics and smear campaigning, Americans assumed Clinton's guilt in each subsequent scandal. And finally, the media and the American people ended up buying into a scandal with no basis in fact and condemning the Clinton administration for something it had nothing to do with.
(Brian Cook is a Cavalier Daily opinion editor. He can be reached at bcook@cavalierdaily.com.)
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