American Politics Journal

You've GOT to Be Kidding!
ScaifeNetDoily vs. OfficeMax – who do YOU trust?
By Tamara Baker

Friday, June 15, 2001 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- You all remember how Ari claimed the Bush Junta currently illegally occupying the White House said that they had to spend THOUSANDS of DOLLARS to replace all those White House keyboards because Evil Clinton Staffers had SABOTAGED them?

And you all remember how that little story was shot to hell when some folks remembered how OfficeMax, upon hearing of the alleged vandalism back in late January, donated 100 full keyboards and 500 "W" keys to the Bushies?

Well, it seems that the Bush Junta's conservative minions will never, ever admit that the whole thing was a freaking LIE. They are, through their Scaife-financed buddies at WorldNetDaily, trying to say that they didn't accept OfficeMax's donation:

But WorldNetDaily has learned that the White House turned down the donated equipment, citing rules against accepting gifts that big. Logitech valued the donation at about $6,000.
"If you look at the legal rules for what the White House can and cannot accept, in terms of gifts over a certain amount, there was a problem with that donation," a White House spokesman said. He did not elaborate.

Don'tcha just LOVE those unnamed sources?

But wait! As even ScaifeNetDoily admits, OfficeMax says that it never got the keyboards back, and that Shrub's minions never responded to their offer:

Both OfficeMax and Logitech say the White House never thanked them or even acknowledged their donation.
The White House, however, says it replied to Feuer's letter.
"I haven't seen it if they did" send a letter, OfficeMax's Baisden said.
"I'm sure we shipped" the keyboards, he added. "But I don't know if they accepted them or refused shipment."
"A thank you? Not that I heard of," said Logitech's Papadopulos.
"We haven't heard anything back from the White House about whether they accepted them or anything," he added. "We don't know that happened to them. And they never replied with a thank you."
And Logitech was actually the one that footed the $6,000 bill.
"We donated the keyboards," Papadopulos said. "We were charged. We got the invoice. They just came out of OfficeMax's supply."

Now, folks, time to pull out Occam's Razor here.

You remember ol' William of Ockham? He's the dude who said that, when one must choose between multiple explanations, that the simplest one is usually the correct one.

What's more likely: that Ari and his folks hid thousands of dollars worth of alleged damage -- damage that, had it actually occurred, they were obligated BY LAW to report to GSA, among other folks -- and snubbed the OfficeMax people's generous and well-meant offer... or that the damage never actually happened, and Ari and his crew would rather invent lie upon lie (and accept the OfficeMax keyboards without comment) than admit that they'd snookered the media for months on this issue?

Really, now: Whenever Republicans find anything -- ANYTHING -- they think they can use as an example of Democratic naughtiness (remember the infamous unsigned, undated, unaddressed "memo" that FBI head (and GOP stalwart) Louis Freeh said last summer was "proof" of Al Gore's having done something heinous?), they IMMEDIATELY run to their favorite press lackeys and hop in front of cameras waving it around like it was the American flag.

If the Bushies really and truly had proof of the massive damage they claim the departing Clinton staffers did -- damage that nobody else but them claims to have seen, much less documented -- you can bet your 401(k) plan that they would have been on Brian Williams' and Bill O'Reilly's and Chris Matthews and Wolf Blitzer's shows (not to mention Dan Rather's and Tom Brokaw's and Peter Jennings' shows) slathering over it in living color, 24/7.

But they don't. So they haven't.

QED.