ANOTHER FINE MESS

Eighteen months and thousands of hours of research and testimony after the incident, the General Accounting Office has concluded its investigation into the mess left by Democrats when they were forced from the White House in January 2001. The GAO is now able to state conclusively that somewhere between six and 62 Ws were removed from White House keyboards.

Also, in a 220-page report that includes extensive emendation from the president’s staff, the GAO concluded that office signs were removed by Democratic staffers, vulgar messages were left on the walls, as were fake signs poking fun at the new administration and campaign stickers were stuck in unlikely places. The staffers also put unkind comments on voice mail.

More carnage: TV clickers were reported missing, cameras may or may not have been taken and telephones were disconnected or left without identifying numbers. Glue was placed on some desk drawers and at least several door- knobs were purposely removed. One 12-inch presidential seal also was removed. There was talk of broken office furniture, but the GAO couldn’t decide whether this was intentional or just wear and tear.

The report comes at the request of Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, a man known for liking to get to the bottom of things. The investigation was begun after Bush staffers complained about the mess Clinton staffers left behind and talk radio picked up on the episode as one more example of the craven indifference to basic values displayed by the outgoing administration. The GAO report includes commentary that the Clinton staffers encountered a similar though lesser sort of mess in 1993 when the first Bush administration departed, except instead of missing Ws they found graffiti carved into a few of the desks.

The White House is not pleased with the GAO report, which apparently did not take into account the gravity of the situation, including a sign that unfavorably compared the new president with a chimpanzee. We share their concern. Also the chimp sign was laced into the reams of paper in a number of copiers. Very bad.

So here’s a partial accounting of the cost of repair, which totaled between $13,000 and $14,000:

. $4,850 to purchase 62 keyboards (apparently removing the W disables the entire keyboard)

. $2,040 to purchase 26 cellular phones

. $1,150 for professional cleaning

. $729 for two cameras

. $221 for 15 TV remote controls

. $76 to remove a telephone from an office

. $2,100 for new doorknobs

. $350 for the presidential seal

The White House list of repairs is much more extensive and much more costly but because the work had to be done quickly to make the transition to a new administration, not all work was documented sufficiently to say whether it included normal repairs, office improvements or was the result of vandalism. The GAO’s top recommendations are to begin a more thorough checkout process for staffers and “provide clear instructions to staff about what condition the office space and equipment should be left in … and the penalties for damaging and vandalizing government property.” Sound advice. An earlier curfew and nightly bed check couldn’t hurt either.