January 23, 2001

8:35 AM

Where's the dubya? Shenanigans by departing whitehouse staffers.
posted by ritualdevice (18 comments total)

why fix the keys? A keyboard costs 5-10 bucks.
posted by tiaka at 8:37 AM on January 23, 2001

yeah, and it looks like they can afford 'em.
posted by ritualdevice at 8:40 AM on January 23, 2001

This is the government we're talking about. The keys will be purchased at a price of $15 each and replaced by a worker getting paid $120/hour. Efficiency, that.
posted by hijinx at 8:40 AM on January 23, 2001

I am surprised that Shrub does not just suggest that the staffers use two 'U's instead:

George UU Bush.
posted by DragonBoy at 10:20 AM on January 23, 2001

*thinking i need to call the whitehouse and bid on that key-replacement contract*
posted by th3ph17 at 10:40 AM on January 23, 2001

DragonBoy: let's be historical, and make it a double-vey: GEORGIVS VV BVSH, REX IMPERATOR
posted by holgate at 11:44 AM on January 23, 2001

I seem to recall that when Bush Senior moved out, his people grabbed all the hard drives -- in some cases, simply ripping them out of the chassis.

This time round, I guess the Clinton people just did a diskwipe.
posted by leo at 12:00 PM on January 23, 2001

Why am I tempted to make a snarky comment about "diskwipe"?
posted by tj at 12:39 PM on January 23, 2001

The hard drives are supposed to go under Congressional regulation of official presidential records. That wasn't vindictive, it just wasn't handled very well. This time around they did it more elegantly.

How many were really completely gone? Supposedly some were in desk drawers or taped to door frames.
posted by dhartung at 12:58 PM on January 23, 2001

What a bunch of wascally wapscallions that Cwinton Administwation was....good widdance!
posted by briank at 1:28 PM on January 23, 2001

The hard drives are supposed to go under Congressional regulation of official presidential records. That wasn't vindictive, it just wasn't handled very well. This time around they did it more elegantly.

Were the (bush sr.) drives removed as part of official presidential records? I thought it was to avoid being part of the records that the Bush Sr. people took the drives. It was eight years ago and the mind -- mine at least -- tends to forget...
posted by leo at 3:04 PM on January 23, 2001

This isn't a prank, it's destruction of government property ("damaged with the spring broken"). Every prior user ought to get garnisheed for the cost of an entire new keyboard. An expensive new keyboard.
posted by aaron at 3:36 PM on January 23, 2001

This isn't a prank, it's destruction of government property ("damaged with the spring broken"). Every prior user ought to get garnisheed for the cost of an entire new keyboard. An expensive new keyboard.
posted by aaron at 3:37 PM on January 23, 2001

(Sorry, I was testing the "wait" button.)
posted by aaron at 3:37 PM on January 23, 2001

While your testing, perhaps you could try the "sense of humour" button.
posted by fullerine at 4:27 PM on January 23, 2001

Destroying things that I paid for (in part) is never funny.
posted by kindall at 4:48 PM on January 23, 2001

Leo, that would have been seriously illegal. Even in the days of Oliver North, hard drives, e-mail backups, and voicemail records were archived. Incoming Clinton staffers were under the (incorrect) assumption that the previous administration was bound to leave them working machines.

There's a bipartisan committee for a smooth transition, and this is the sort of thing they should address. It's not clear whether Bush-Cheney worked with them at all.
posted by dhartung at 1:10 PM on January 24, 2001