its not about the dozy official who made a mistake, its about the relatives of dead soldiers.

I'm sorry Phil I thought your original post was. . .wait a sec. . .

Yup, looks like you took a shot at the admin. Sorry if I misread it.

now youre being pedantic. :p

what it is.

How does the press 'overblow' when only reporting potential crimes (misdemeanors) by Democrats. If the story was overblown, the new White House press office was repeatedly making the accusations.

Meanwhile, I am completely befuddled why you had to look up what was a well publicized story in 2001. Why look up what was commonly and widely reported - especially when it was later discovered to intentionally make future employment for Democratic White House employees difficult? Overblown? Then White House officials were ‘overblowing’ it. Why erroneously blame the press? Overblown would only be due to repeated accusations by lying White House officials. Press would only be guilty of reporting what White House officials say.

Lying by White House officials, it turns out, would be situation normal. Those missing W's prophesized presidential lying. We did not know George Jr officials lie often and repeatedly to harm others until many months later. And yet that prophesy was 'overblown'?

you can all overblow me

Blow me tw - You are wrong on several counts, but the reality is that there were "w's" missing just not the lines getting cut or any of the other BS. It was an immature reaction by the Dems and an exaggeration be the repubs that created all this - just like in high school. There was no massive conspiracy or anything like that.

Move along folks - nothing more to see here.

I remember the news stories about it. It seemed at the time that it was much ado about nothing, but I was disappointed in the democrats that pulled the prank, because it was pretty juvenile That part of the story is one that I never heard. Can you point to some references on this? Who discovered this? Or was it just conjecture at the time?

I'd read, some time later, the total number of missing Ws was 2. No way to verify it though. Anybody got proof, or even written reference, of any numbers?

I too, thought it much ado about nothing. :confused:

I looked this afternoon (as I was only vaguely aware of the story at the time) and I couldn't find it documented.

62 keyboards were replaced in total, but the GAO declined to comment whether these were due to missing/ damaged Ws or simple wear and tear.

Therefore the story was 'underblown' because the Democrats never pulled that prank. The story was so 'underhyped' that you never learned the truth? Missing W's on White House keyboards never happened. It was a neocon prank - intentional lying - so that potential employers would fear to hire Democrats from the Clinton administration. Why are you still 'disappointed' with the victims? The disappointment should have been with senior White House officials who lied about missing W's on keyboards. It did not happen. It was another example of what would be called Limbaugh lies.

I am totally shocked how many never learned the entire story - which means it was 'underblown' - not hyped enough.

tw, you are wrong - it did happen - it just wasn't as big a story as it was originally made out to be. There wasn't widespread vandalism as was originally reported, no. But there were a number of keyboards damaged and some other "juvenile pranks." Thats all nothing else.

Are you going to give me a link or not?

Google "White house keyboard scandal"
I tried to insert a link, but it didn't work, sorry.

Thanks. A Salon story covering this explains why I never knew about the second part. My paper is the Washington Post. It ran a long detailed front page story on the "vandalism" done to the White House, but never assigned a reporter to the story when the GAO report later cleared the Clinton admin of any serious wrongdoing. They did run a short AP story in deep within the paper. I remember that front page story (the Salon article has snipits from it that I almost remembered word for word) but I never saw a retraction.