Below the Fold for April 21

Let's check out some political stories we found Below the Fold.

Ransack at 1600?

Remember that flap over whether outgoing Clinton staff vandalized the White House? Clinton partisans have said for a year that it was all a lie, but a preliminary GAO report indicates otherwise.

The Washington Times says the document, based on a year's investigation, cites stolen historic doorknobs, a missing presidential seal, broken chairs and tables, overturned desks, garbage strewn in offices and cut telephone lines. And the report says the 75 computer keyboards from which the "W" key was removed ended up costing $5000 to replace.

The report puts the overall damage at about $14,000.

Batter Up

An Illinois priest is furiously apologizing for what he said this week about people who say they were victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. The Reverend Richard Ross of Joliet says, "there's no adequate way for me to express my intense sorrow" for remarks he now says were, "inexcusable."

And what did he say? "I don't have much sympathy for people who somehow couldn't stop whatever happened. I'll take all those people who were abused and I'll abuse them with a baseball bat. You can quote me on that."

Creating a Storm?

House Majority whip Tom Delay is backing and filling on comments made in what he thought was a private meeting with people at a Baptist Church in Texas. He told the audience not to send their kids to Baylor or Texas A&M universities.

The problem for DeLay is that his daughter graduated from A&M, and he went to Baylor for two years and got kicked out. DeLay says he was answering a specific question about the teaching of creationism — or the lack of it — and meant his warning about the colleges only in that context. Delay says he did not know his comments were being tape-recorded.