"Team Obama" has praised the Bush administration for how Republican officials have gone out of their way to offer a friendly and efficient transition to the new Democratic President.
That wasn't the treatment given to Bush when he came into office in 2001. Democratic staffers from the Clinton administration vandalized White House offices before turning them over to the Bush staff.
They cut phone lines and wrote obscene graffiti on the walls.
On June 3, 2001 The Washington Post quoted White House spokesman Ari Fleischer as saying that the damage included the removal of the letter "W" from 100 computer keyboards, five missing brass nameplates with the presidential seal on them, 75 telephones with cover plates missing or apparently intentionally plugged into the wrong wall outlets, six fax machines relocated in the same way, ten cut phone lines, two historic door knobs missing, overturned desks and furniture in about 20 percent of the offices, obscene graffiti in six offices, and eight 14-foot loads of usable office supplies recovered from the trash.
Nice.
Some have drawn their own conclusions about the difference between Democrats and Republicans in Washington from episodes like this. Although to be fair, it was the Clintons, and it was 8 years ago.
But if the Bush staff had done this to Obama, essentially sabotaging the White House office space, would it have been largely ignored by the media, as it was in 2001? Doubt it.
Bush left in a gentlemanly fashion, but few care.
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