The Post's Grove gave the vandal scandal its debut, but it took off a day later thanks to Matt Drudge, who quoted a "close Bush adviser" saying the damage went "way beyond pranks, to vandalism."

Then online columnist Rich Galen, a former Republican strategist, reported that Tipper Gore personally called Lynne Cheney, wife of the new vice president, to apologize.

The Bush White House, for its part, handled initial questions about the damage with surprising good humor, at least publicly. When Fleischer was asked for his reaction, he told reporters, "It would have been 'Wow,' but the 'W' was removed, so now it's just 'O.'"

Meanwhile, Clinton was getting pummeled over his controversial pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, and the vandalism story simmered for a day, bubbling up mostly on low-rent TV talk shows. But while Fleischer downplayed the seriousness of the supposed damage, two Bush staffers identified by White House reporters as "midlevel" aides started telling the media, off the record, that the damage went far beyond some missing keyboard W's. White House reporters quickly took the bait.

"There's a lot of criticism about the pack journalism when it comes to the press corps," says one White House reporter. "The dangerous thing is that you have a group of people who are itching to be the first to call something a big story. [Reporters] were so worried about not being the first one on the story that I think they jumped the gun."

That Thursday, Jan. 25, Fleischer gave reporters the tidbit they needed to move with a vandal scandal story. Asked whether there would be a "serious investigation" of the damage, Fleischer responded, "There is no investigation. What we are doing is cataloging that which took place."

That was enough: The White House found the damage vast enough to "catalog." Clearly, there was something worth writing about.

Then, asked to detail the damage, Fleischer responded, "I choose not to. I choose not to describe what acts were done that we found upon arrival because I think that's part of changing the tone in Washington."

That led to an avalanche of questions:

"Well, what's the catalog?"

"Yeah, why give them -- if you're going to give them a pass, why bother to catalogue?"

"How much? Is there a dollar figure?"

"Is there any estimate on how much this damage has done?"

"You've got to blame somebody," a reporter began, before being cut off by Fleischer. "President Bush is not going to come to Washington for the point of blaming somebody in this town," Fleischer said. "And it's a different way of governing, it's a different way of leading."

Fleischer was then questioned about the rumor started two days earlier in Galen's column that Tipper Gore had called Lynne Cheney.

"I know that a phone call was made to the vice president's office," he replied coyly, "but I really -- I don't recall who made it."

Asked where the most damage had been done, he responded: "You know, I really stopped paying attention to all the different places."

The briefing went on, hitting other topics before circling back to the alleged vandalism. Fleischer talked about the renovations going on in the office complex, to be expected during a presidential transition, and he noted that the work included carpets being torn out and rewiring. So, a reporter asked, could some of the rumored damages, besides the obvious pranks, be the result of renovations?

"Well," Fleischer responded, "I don't think that the people who were professionals, who make their business to go in and prepare a White House for new arrivals, would cut wires."

Fleischer's statement about "cut wires" indicated a greater breadth of damage than he had confirmed earlier. But before reporters could get in any more questions, the briefing ended. No matter: Fleischer had already given them more than enough.

The next day the Washington Post ran a front-page story by Mike Allen reporting that the White House was "cataloging numerous acts of apparent vandalism" that included "sliced phone and computer lines, obscene messages left in copy machines and champagne flutes missing from an Air Force jet."

The cute story that had appeared in the Post earlier in the week had officially ballooned into one more tawdry Clinton scandal. Now, according to the Post, "Bush officials described serious damage that has taken taxpayer money to repair." There was a full accounting of the pranks that some Democrats now, on background, confirmed: the missing "W" keys, the placement of phony signs on certain doors with titles like "Office of Strategery," "Office of Subliminable Messages" and "Division of Uniting," and reports that Clinton staffers had "interspersed blank photocopy paper with a fake Time magazine cover -- widely circulated on the Internet during the Florida recount litigation -- featuring a photo of an unhappy Bush saying "Oh shit."

Allen's front-page story included even more damaging allegations, quoting one unnamed Bush official who accused Clinton staffers "of taking White House paintings and trying to have them shipped to themselves. Others are said to have steamed official seals off office doors and tried to have them shipped." In fact, according to the story, "the incoming Bush administration ordered all packages X-rayed starting at noon" the day it moved in.

As if the portrait of Clinton's staff members loading their pickups with White House valuables wasn't enough, readers were treated to the heartwarming image of a service staff grateful that their rightful rulers had returned. "Some of the kitchen staff hugged members of the Bush family, the official said, adding, 'You could sense an attitude, like, 'Thank God you're here.'"

Other news reports were more muted. The Los Angeles Times quoted Fleischer's remarks and ran a list of many of the alleged acts of vandalism, but kept them in the "rumor" category. But it also debunked Galen's Tipper Gore-Lynne Cheney story -- which Fleischer had notably not debunked when given the chance -- by placing a call to Al Gore. (Dick Cheney also later disputed the rumor, but Galen still says he stands by his story.)

The Associated Press' coverage repeated Fleischer's comments uncritically, but did include near the end of its report a comment from Karen Tramontano, counselor to Clinton's chief of staff Podesta, saying, "We left everything in good condition." The New York Times mentioned the vandalism "cataloging" only briefly in a Week in Review feature.

The day after running an inflammatory front-page story, the Washington Post ran another scandal story inside, noting that Fleischer "had scaled back his description of a review the White House is conducting of purported vandalism." The "cataloging" Fleischer had previously discussed now consisted of an aide "keeping track in his head" of any damage.

But the vandal scandal story was already in play, snowballing along with allegations about the looting of Air Force One by departing Clintonites (an erroneous tale that would be debunked by Bush himself two weeks later) and the Clintons' "gift scandal" (which was also inaccurately reported) into a final damning picture that seemed to confirm everything his Republican critics had been saying about the Democratic president.

Editorialists across the country were soon in high dudgeon. Typical was the Indianapolis Star, which opined: "President Bush is being too civil and a bit too charitable in putting a lid on the trashing of the White House and looting of Air Force One ... These vandals deserve to be exposed."

"Such trashy behavior and disrespect for the White House comes as little surprise," scolded the Houston Chronicle. "Sad that what was supposed to have been 'the most ethical administration in history' ends as the gang that couldn't loot straight."

The scandal played well for the new administration. "We learned more about the pardons. We learned about the gifts. We learned about a little bit of vandalizing of the White House and the Old Executive Office Building," Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol pointed out to Fox News. "It's been really great for Bush to have people -- and including many Gore voters, I think -- just look up and think, 'You know what? Maybe I didn't want Bush to be president, but I am glad that Bill Clinton is gone.'"

By the time the scandals began to fade from the media, in the first weeks of February, Bush's favorability ranking had soared (to 60 percent according to CNN/Time). It couldn't have gone better for members of the incoming Bush administration had they choreographed it themselves. And, in fact, they had.

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