From Matt Bivens column 'The Daily Outrage' on
www.thenation.com:
Vandal-in-Chief
Remember when the Bush Administration was pushing a partisan falsehood about how outgoing Clinton folks had "vandalized" the White House? Remember how, even without photos or evidence -- or, ahem, facts -- the media couldn't get enough of the story? Remember how, after the formal US government study concluded the story was untrue -- an early indication of the Bush team's commitment to honesty -- editors defended their past enthusiasm for the non-story on grounds that it was just too sexy to ignore?
Well, fine. Where are the headlines about the Bush team's trashing of Buckingham Palace?
Queen Elizabeth -- already less than chuffed with Bush over the five personal chefs he brought along for his visit -- is now "furious" with our president for having let his men rip up her gardens, the Sunday Mirror reports.
"Palace staff said they had never seen the Queen so angry as when she saw how her perfectly-mantained lawns had been churned up after being turned into helipads with three giant H landing markings for the Bush visit. The rotors of the President's Marine Force One helicopter and two support Black Hawks damaged trees and shrubs that had survived since Queen Victoria's reign. ... clod-hopping security service men trampled more precious and exotic plants. The Queen's own flock of flamingoes, which security staff insisted should be moved in case they flew into the helicopter rotors, are thought to be so traumatized after being taken to a 'place of safety' that they might never return home. ... The Palace's head gardener, Mark Lane, was reported to be in tears when he saw the scale of the damage."
One unnamed Palace insider told the Sunday Mirror many of the plants and trees killed were rare species named after members of the royal family. "The Queen has every right to feel insulted at the way she has been treated by Bush. The repairs will cost tens of thousands of pounds but the damage to historic and rare plants will be immense. They are still taking an inventory. ... Thirty thousand visitors did not do as much damage as the Americans did in three days."
This story has everything the Clinton vandalism story had and far, far more. We're not talking about a few missing W keys from a few keyboards; we're talking about mass, crass destruction of rare historic gardens.
So where's the breathless American media coverage?
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