On leaving office, Clinton White House staffers left a trail of vandalism, including the letter W – as in George W. Bush – removed from computer keyboards.
Fox News reported some of the missing W's had been taped atop 12-foot-tall doorways, others left lying on their broken springs or simply scratched out.
The middle initial in Bush's name – he is known colloquially as "Dubya" – became a symbol in his successful campaign for the presidency, with Bush often holding up three middle fingers signifying W.
The new president's staff members had to get busy replacing the missing W's before they could get down to work Monday.
In addition to vandalized keyboards, unflattering graffiti was discovered scrawled on walls.
Workmen hastened to repaint the offices even as Bush was on Capitol Hill taking the oath of office.
Miscellaneous contents of staffers' desk drawers had been dumped and scattered about office floors.
Historically, political appointees working on a president's staff have treated "the people's house" with respect, even awe.
Defacing or causing even the slightest physical damage to the White House and adjoining complex, all considered part of the White House, was heretofore regarded as unthinkable.
Destroying government property is a federal offense.
During the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, one senior aide used to keep a close eye on the staff as he moved about the White House.
He was known for his routine question – and there had better be a good answer: "What have you done for your country today?"
Using the White House mailing privilege for personal letters then could be a firing offense.
When Lyndon B. Johnson was president, he would gesture to small black holes in the cork tiles bordering the sculpted Oval Office carpet and grumble:
"Ike and his [blankety-blank] golf shoes!"
During the energy crunch, President Jimmy Carter went around the White House switching off lights in unoccupied rooms and turning up the air-conditioning thermostats.
An aide in a previous administration was overcome with a sense of history when he was assigned an office in the majestic Old Executive Office Building – known during World Wars I and II as the War and State Building.
With pride he would point out to visitors that the foyer of his office was the reception room in which, during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, Secretary of State Cordell Hull turned the air blue with Tennessee curses while dressing down the Japanese ambassador on Pearl Harbor Day.
In the recent administration of Bill Clinton, the Oval Office was used by the president for his sexual liaisons with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.
A president's attitude toward the historic national premises entrusted to his temporary care is usually reflected by his White House staff.
Mass removal of W's from keyboards was a symbolic way for Clinton's staff to display their lack of regard for his successor, whose presidency some Clinton partisans have denounced as "illegitimate."
