A belated and humbled Update: coffeetalk is correct. The GAO report pdf confirmed an order for replacement keyboards due to "missing or inoperable" keys. The opening premise of this diary is therefore not entirely true. I'll leave it posted with this question: Is the central premise, that these people have done their best to drive us apart and distract with lies great and small, still valid?
As we watch the horrid stain on our national honor seep into the carpet of history, as we await the advent of an imperfect but at least minimally earnest presidency, my mind is drawn back to another January.
Despite an election halted--some said stolen--by an unelected court, Democrats stood with party's vanquished standard-bearer in wishing the incoming president luck, giving the benefit of democracy's doubt to new chief executive's pledge to build a bridge between bitterly divided parties and serve all the country's people.
By day's end, that pledge was already a flat joke, soured by the new administration's first official lie in office.
I'm sure you remember the tale:
Clinton/Gore staffers had trashed the White House, even prying the Ws off of computer keyboards. While the new president seemed to take the exiting staffers' "pranks" in stride, preferring to move on with the country's business, some on his team were less sanguine, vowing a full revelation of the bitter departees' deeds.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There might have been a prank or two, you know, maybe somebody put a cartoon on the wall, but that's OK. It's time now to move forward.
WALLACE: But at the same time, the Bush White House says it is informally documenting what happened. And so, what are Clinton staffers accused of doing before Bush aides arrived? According to Republican sources, Ws were removed from computer keyboards, signs, such as the Office of Strategery, were tacked on doors poking fun of the president's malapropisms and phone lines were cut, according to the Bush team, but not by workers who were busily repainting and recarpeting the White House.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY DESIGNATE: Well, I don't think that the people who are professionals who make it their business to go and prepare a White House for new arrivals would cut wires.
America never got that full accounting of the Clintonians misdeeds, of course, because the story was made up out of whole cloth. It was, in technical terms, a load of hooey, despite its persistence in the minds of many (like, say, Mike Silva, FOX "News" and dedicated Republicans still holding out in their Pacific atoll caves).
So why, after eight years of lies that led to wars, lies that left citizens stranded on roofs, lies that decimated our military and intelligence assets, do I find myself wandering down that particular Memory Lane today? What was the big deal with a lie about "pranks" which was itself little more than a prank?
Because with their very first lie (and, appropriately, with one of their last--that the incoming First Family would be shut out of Blair House because of previous bookings), George W. "Junior" Bush and those he's gathered around him demonstrated the deep-down meanness of their natures.
From their very first hours in The Nation's House, they sought to divide us, to distract us with partisan hatreds, to make governance an exercise in scorched-earth warfare.
They have poisoned our food, poisoned our air and water, poisoned our founding documents, poisoned the very halls where our representatives debate (Excuse me, go what myself?).
What is worst, from beginning to end, they have striven to poison our hearts.
In the days and years ahead, there will be many instances of what may seem excessive deference to our political foes. Cries of "Caving!" and "Sell out!" will echo through these pages.
But, while you strive to see the policies you pursue enacted, while you stand boldly against the erosion of principle, please remember the First Lie, and the poison they tried to inject into our deepest hearts.
If our new president can bring no other change but to offer an antidote to that dreadful draught, he will indeed be marked among our greatest.
That's all for now. See you on the Mall.