BS. If you got a bill like that for the 'real' damage, you'd be outraged. It wasn't '$14000 worth of vandalism' but keyboards without W's, normal wear-and-tear, a few missing doorknobs for doors that were sealed off, and dirty carpet. Things you'd expect from heavy use. Oh, and a missing seal, probably stolen as a momento.
Here is an analysis of the 'vandalism' damages. Just the first of a long line of BS from the Bush administration...
But the GAO document is more interesting for what isn't in it than for what is. It's a far cry from what was promised by Republicans like longtime obsessive Clinton-hater Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., who pressed the GAO for the investigation. Whatever happened to the looting and trashing Barr said would be documented? The expensive paintings that were supposedly stolen from the White House? The "cut wires" that White House press secretary Ari Fleischer had publicly referred to? The never-explained "porn bombs" that anonymous GOP sources had complained about? The presidential seals that were stolen, or the historical doorknobs that had been yanked off for souvenirs?
Some of these serious allegations are repeated in the report, but none are proven. The seals and the doorknobs, for example, are described as "missing items for which no documentation, such as facility request forms or purchase records, was available." They could cost somewhere between $3,750 to $4,675, according to the report, but it's still not clear if, how or why they disappeared.
The missing doorknobs in one office, according to a Clinton staffer quoted in the report, might never have been there to begin with, since the door went unused, and was covered by a bureau. (The report also makes clear that these items suddenly showed up on a White House list compiled in June 2001 -- based on the months-old "recollections" of staffers -- which does not exactly scream reliability.)
The GAO report does persuasively show, with some corroboration by former Clinton staffers, that the most extensive damage came from the juvenile idea of popping the "W" key off computer keyboards, rendering them unusable.
The GAO affixed a $4,650 cost to replacing 62 keyboards (which, at $75 a pop, is about six times what a basic keyboard runs for at Office Depot). It's unclear whether all 62 keyboards that were replaced actually had the missing "W" -- the White House bookkeeping is unclear on this point.
It's also a mystery what happened to 26 cellphones and two cameras, which the White House says it spent $2,769 to replace. Add to that a $1,150 cleaning cost, and some other costs that seem negligible ($221 to replace 15 TV remotes, for example, that some Clinton staffers told the GAO never existed), the GAO came up with a $9,324 total "spent to repair and replace items that were observed broken or missing in specific locations" where complaints of vandalism had been made.
So it's safe to say that a close reading of the GAO report doesn't validate the charges of wanton, widespread destruction by the Clinton team. What it does show is the lengths to which the Bush administration went to try to make the scandal charges stick. The White House issued its own 75-page answer to the draft GAO findings earlier this year, which is included in the final GAO report. It's a remarkable document, cataloguing rumor, innuendo, pranks and insults that the Bushies endured at the hands of the departing Democrats, even if they involved no physical damage whatsoever.
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