The King of Pointland

Chapter 44: I Send Al Franken an Email, and He Responds

Here's my email:

Date:	Fri, 26 Dec 2003 01:41:18 -0500
From:	David Eisner
To:	Al Franken
Subject:	White House Vandalism: I humbly suggest that you got it wrong

I generally enjoy "Lies ..".  It's funny, often hillarious, and exposes the,
well, lies, of the right.

However, I'm also a fairly skeptical person, so from time to time I've been
checking up on what you say in the book. You're usually dead on.
But not always.

Discussing claims that members of the Clinton staff had vandalized the
White House before leaving it to its new occupants in January 2001,
you say (pp. 153-154): Of course, none of this horrible vandalism
actually occurred. But Georgia firebrand congressman Bob Barr had not
been clued in on the ruse. Outraged, he demanded an immediate
investigation by Congress's General Accounting Office. Fourteen
months later, this, the final investigation of the Clinton administration,
yielded a 217-page report that found no damage to the White House
nor to the Executive Office Building. "There is no record of damage
that may have been deliberately caused by employees of the
Clinton administration."

In fact, the report did find that damage occured. The quote,
pulled from the Background section, refers to a response
given in an earlier part of the investigation: On April 18, 2001, the
director of the Office of Administration (OA),1 an EOP unit, wrote us a
letter indicating that the White House had no record of damage that
"may have been deliberately caused by employees of the prior
[a]dministration" and that "... repair records do not contain information
that would allow someone to determine the cause of damage that is
being repaired."

But the report goes on: In late May and early June 2001, these allegations
resurfaced in the news media and on June 4, you asked us to investigate
the matter further.

This second, and much more intensive investigation, detailed in the report,
concluded:  Damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks occurred in the White House
complex during the 2001 presidential transition. Incidents such as the
removal of keys from computer keyboards; the theft of various items; the
leaving of certain voice mail messages, signs, and written messages;
and the placing of glue on desk drawers clearly were intentional acts.

The report also states that other allegations could be neither
confirmed nor denied.

To be sure, some of the allegations were exaggerated. But to say
that the report found "no damage to the White House" is simply wrong.
And, to be honest, you would probably call it a lie.

You can find the complete GAO report (GAO-02-360) here:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02360.pdf

-David Eisner
 Hyattsville, MD

Here is Al Franken's response:

Date:	Fri, 26 Dec 2003 03:12:21 -0500
From:	Al Franken
To:	David Eisner
Subject:	Re: White House Vandalism: I humbly suggest that you got it wrong

Thanks. Actually, you are not the first to point this out and we will be changing it for further printings, if it hasn't been already. The report we cited was the preliminary report. You will remember, however, that Ari Fleischer said that the vandalism was going to be carefully chronicalled and it turned out that it wasn't at all.

But thanks again.

Al

So there you go.

Posted by cradle at January 13, 2004 03:45 PM