http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/02/14/bush/index.html
George W. Bush, Clinton defender
The new president tells members of the press that stories about vandalism
aboard Air Force One as Clinton left office weren't true.
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By Jake Tapper
Feb. 14, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- Shortly after noon on Tuesday, President Bush
joined reporters in the back of Air Force One to rap a little. And an odd
dynamic emerged as reporters tried to get Bush to engage in a little good ol'
fashioned Clinton-bashing. The 43rd president not only refrained from taking
the bait, but he even defended the president against some shoddy journalism.
"Are you distracted at all by the furor over the Marc Rich pardon and the
former president?" Bush was asked.
"Not at all," he said.
"Not a distraction?"
"Not at all," Bush repeated. "I will tell you one thing, just in terms of the
former president. All the allegations that they took stuff off of Air Force
One is simply not true, for example."
Bush raised the issue because the chief steward had told him that the stories
alleging that Air Force One had been pilfered by those rascally white-trash
Clintons were simply not true.
Andrea Mitchell, NBC, Jan. 25: "The Air Force will replace Air Force One
glasses and four hand towels, apparently pilfered by passengers traveling
with the Clintons on their last plane ride home."
Brit Hume, Fox News Channel, Jan. 25, "The raid that was conducted aboard
that Air Force plane, the presidential plane, although it's not called Air
Force One because the president was no longer -- Mr. Clinton, Mr. Clinton was
no longer president -- on the last flight to New York when the blankets,
pillowcases, silverware ..."
Kate O'Beirne, CNN, Jan. 27, "During Bill Clinton's final flight, the plane
was stripped bare and not by sentimental staffers seeking mementos. Air Force
One souvenirs were quickly posted for auction online. Why not make a final
buck off the White House? Outrageous, but not surprising."
But the Air Force One story, as with the allegations of widespread White
House vandalism, proved not to be true. And Bush was there to say so. "There
might have been a prank or two, maybe somebody put a cartoon on the wall, but
that's OK," Bush said about the White House "vandalism" on Jan. 26. "It's
time now to move forward."
But if Bush says these stories aren't true, where did they come from?
Senior-level Bush White House staffers were indeed talking reporters out of
covering some of the more insane allegations made about White House
vandalism, trying to convince journalists that some of the charges were
false.
But Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, gave the story credibility a day
earlier when he told reporters, "What we are doing is cataloging that which
took place. And that's the status."
Watch carefully as Fleischer does this "Change the Tone" dance.
"I choose not to describe what acts were done that we found upon arrival,
because I think that's part of changing the tone in Washington," Fleischer
said. "I think it would be easy for us to reflect and to discuss these
things, and to be critical. President Bush chooses to set a different tone
... The president understands that transitions can be times of difficulty and
strong emotion. And he's going to approach it in that vein."
Where was all the damage done? Fleischer was asked.
"You know, I really stopped paying attention to all the different places," he
said.
Asked if the phone line that was reportedly cut could have been damaged in
the process of renovation, Fleischer said, "Well, I don't think that the
people who were professionals who make their business to go in and prepare a
White House for new arrivals would cut wires."
It was only after Jan. 25, after the story of the White House vandalism
erupted, that Fleischer clarified that the team effort at "cataloging that
which took place" was actually just "one person in our administrative offices
who is really just keeping track in his head about things that may have taken
place."
Kind of a different thing, no?
It's nice that President Bush is classy and responsible enough to tell the
press that the story that so many of them reported as fact simply wasn't so.
But while former President Clinton awaits Brit Hume's on-air recantation and
apology, his successor might want to devote a little time to figuring out how
and why that falsehood was reported in the first place. Because sooner or
later, stories that are dogs bite every politician.
