Bush Transition Beats Clinton's

I know it's easy and somewhat desirable to forget all the Clinton crap from eight long years ago but let's recap, shall we? That way we can be thankful that in President Bush we had a decent man who took his office seriously.

With Bush we won't have the last minute plethora of pardons. On his very last day in office Clinton issued 140 pardons. Many of Cinton's pardons were granted against the recommendations of the Department of Justice and forty-seven were granted, quite unusually, without ANY examination or review by that entity. Bill Clinton pardoned his drug dealing brother, cocaine kingpin Carlos Vignali, some Puerto Rican FALN terrorists, Marc Rich, international fugitive who had done business with Iran while they held our people hostage (he was on the FBI's most wanted list), the Hasidic Jews of New Square community who swindled the U.S Government out of $40 million among others. In Clinton's defence he did not pardon himself despite agreeing to a plea deal the day before the inauguration regarding his lying under oath which included his disbarment.

Then we had all the post-pardon revelations. A large number of the newly pardoned had been big contributors to either Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign, the Clinton Presidential library or both. Both Clinton's had a brother making pardon requests on the part of criminals who were willing to pay Hugh Rodem or Roger Clinton for the favor. We still laugh about Mrs. Clinton's "sad and disappointed" press conference. Oh, and the Hasidic Jewish community voted for Senator Clinton 1,400 to 12, a truly startling result since Hasidic Jews in general favored her opponent Rick Lazio who had never hugged Arafat's wife in public.

The new first family quickly became aware of a large amount of missing furniture. Apparently the Clinton's thought that everything that had been added to the White House during their two terms was up for grabs. The concept of someone making a gift "to the White House" was beyond their comprehension. After all, the historic building itself couldn't provide a future political favor or quid pro quo. Although the Clinton's were shamed into returning some of the furnishings and artworks how much they got away with, we will never know. This behavior is made even more bizarre by the fact that Mrs. Clinton had just received an 8 million dollar advance on her book and had registered for thousands of dollars in gifts that supporters dutifully lined up to provide.

Then there was all the office vandalism. The Bush administration tried to keep it on the down low but many incoming administration members found their offices in terrible condition. Cleverly all the keyboards had the "W's" removed, which by the way requires a replacement of the entire keyboard. Desks were turned over, papers scattered, cartoons tacked to walls and in some cases vile liquids poured on office equipment. The clean-up of this totally unnecessary damage and disrespect for our White House was picked up by the American taxpayer. I would have liked to have seen the perpetrators brought to justice for these misdeeds.

The Clinton's cheesiest inauguration day antic had to be the "post Presidency party" at a hangar at JFK Airport. There were a couple thousand supporters, a marching band and some strange review of troops by the now former President. The cost of this televised event was paid by some unidentified "Friends of Bill". If only this could have been a true "swan song" and the Clinton's gone forever.