Posted on 06/24/2002 3:08:22 AM PDT by Elkiejg
SLIPPED DISK
No one is buying Terry McAuliffe's story that some innocent Democratic staffer happened upon a computer disk on a street corner that revealed the White House and the Republican Party's assessment of the 2002 elections.
You'll recall, the DNC earlier this month announced that it had obtained through Republican bumbling a computer disk that contained a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Karl Rove, the White House and the RNC, and outlining their evaluation of the fall campaign. It was mildly embarrassing, if only because the presentation took a more cautious approach to certain elections: it didn't predict a sweep of open Senate seats for Republicans, it portrayed negatively GOP hopes to win gubernatorial elections around the country, and it was cautious about House elections.
McAuliffe claimed a Senate Democratic staffer came upon a computer disk somewhere between the White House and the Hay-Adams Hotel. Once the staffer realized what it was, he handed it over to the DNC, which released it to the media with much fanfare.
But, in fact, Republicans now believe there was no disk. They believe after a White House political staffer made the presentation at the Hay-Adams to a group of California Republicans, a Democratic Party sympathizer at the hotel copied the presentation off of the temporary file that was created in the hotel's overhead projection system.
"The presentation was made using a White House laptop and the Hay-Adams projection system. There was no disk, because you can't easily store a full PowerPoint presentation on a disk like that. It's easier just to store it on a hard drive and use the computer," says a White House source. "We know the computer wasn't stolen, so it had to come from somewhere else."
Some in the White House even checked into whether the presentation could have been videotaped by a DNC operative, then re-created by Democrats. "Anyone could redo the PowerPoint presentation, there was nothing special about it," says the source. "The DNC has the same capabilities we do. It would take them a day to do it."
Either option portrays McAuliffe and his DNC elves as more devious and industrious than Republicans might prefer. "But we know we didn't bumble this," says an RNC senior adviser. "The Democrats didn't get this because we were careless. If McAuliffe is so concerned about his party's standing that he felt he had to sneak into one of our meetings for a campaign update, then he can crow about it all he wants. It just makes them look desperate."
HOMELAND LEAKOLOGY
According to White House sources, no one was impressed with Tom Ridge's performance on Capitol Hill last Thursday. "It certainly confirmed in our minds the reasons why we didn't let him testify before. It wasn't good," says a White House policy staffer.
That said, the testimony hasn't dimmed the president's opinion of Ridge or his abilities to master the Homeland Security bureaucracy. While insiders insist that Ridge has not told the president he doesn't want the job, the president isn't considering other names. "If he is, he isn't telling anyone. No big surprise there," says another White House political staffer. "They launched this Homeland plan with a working group of five and it never got leaked. What makes anyone think names of possible Ridge replacements would be leaked?"
So where did the rumor about chief of staff Andrew Card becoming Secretary of Homeland Security come from? White House staffers believe it came from backers of Card who see him as the only counter-balance they have to Karl Rove's influence with the president. "There are some people working here, who do some good work, but who work for the vice president and some others here, who don't see eye to eye with Mr. Rove and others," says the White House policy staffer. >b>"Now that it appears Karen Hughes is losing influence, you see them leaking again, the way it was back under Bush I. But we aren't going to let things get out of hand. It's pretty easy to close up the leaks once you figure out where they are coming from."
I agree, and I really shouldn't have used the word 'intimidated.' I don't think W is easily intimidated. I do think his campaign advisors probably figured that it would not have been a good image if Ridge had been towering over him during the run-up to Nov 2000.
FReegards...MUD
No way!! Gephardt, D'Asshole, McAuliffe..."Raise your Right hand and swear on this Bible, What did you know and when did you know it?!"
High time the RATS got put on the hotseat!!
FReegards...MUD
I do this all the time for other people. Daily almost.
My scenario would be that the creator or presenter made a copy of the program and copied it to a CD. The CD would allow the presenter to make last minute changes and fine tune the presentation (it's got to be perfect don't you know) or maybe we're we're still waiting for some final figures from one of the other presenters.In any case the actual PowerPoint is not on the harddrive.
Most people at this level tend to be perfectionist and want to have a backup copy in case something goes wrong with the original at Showtime.
When professional people go to a hotel there is often an AV staff that set up the equipment and get it ready for the presentation.
There's your weak link. Many really smart people are one, either "gizmo challenged" and two, have only supervised the creation of the disc and not actually created the PowerPoint.
They hand the CD disc to the AV guy (a really helpful fellow, He copies the CD disc to the hard drive so the "Program runs better." Pops the CD into his pocket and has it burned and puts it back into the laptop when he comes back at break to make sure all is running well.
At the end of the presentation or probably the day he makes a big thing about "erasing" the original from the hard drive for privacy and security but, the dirty deed has already been done.
But if the Republicans still have the disc, then that would get back to the fact that the Democrats are lying about how they got their copy (with all that that implies).
Pardon me, but ABC bought Terry's story.
Do we have any names of who "found" the disk, who he/she gave it to, who leaked it to which Press? I've not seen anyplace that really tracks the story from beginning to end. Would like to see Limbaugh put this under the microscope when he gets back from his extended absence today!! In fact, I'll link him to this thread just in case he's behind in show prep.
FReegards...MUD
That was my first thought as well. I use these projectors all the time when I make presentations for clients (with my laptop and their projector). It's just a different kind of computer "monitor" -- it even plugs into the same video port.
It's more likely that someone videotaped or made notes of the presentation, then created a duplicate presentation using the same template.
I would think the White House would be able to do what they needed, but if the projector is built in, it is easy to go with what is ready.
When, my FRiend? Do you have a link to the transcript wherein this issue was raised by the Medyuh?
FReegards...MUD
Or a CD, which is what I always thought this was from the beginning. That woud give you 650MB. Zips hold 250MB, max. 1.3MB is a floppy, who would use that?
Since a CD can easily hold a PowerPoint file, I don't believe this article or the DNC's story. More than llikely the disk was stolen by a mole.
Thanks...this leakage may be illegal if it is acknowledged a Private Party business. It'll be interesting to see who fesses up to being the RAT to hand it over to the Press.
FReegards...MUD
I don't know about this explanation in the article. If they (the GOP) had the presentation on their own laptop hard drive, it doesn't matter whose projector they used. A computer projector does not contain any data storage - the laptop's video output is simply connected to the projector. No data is transferred from the laptop to anything else.
If you are referring to questions regarding the manner in which the disc was found, I agree with your implication - Big Media didn't have any.
I was referring to the manner in which ABC reported the story. Which is to say, they dutifully carried Terry's line without question, like the good soliers they are.
Though I don't believe this, either, the fib is not as farfetched as you might think. Washingtonians routinely run around with one hand on the cell phone up to their ear, and the other arm clutching a broken or open briefcase, or even just a folded-up Washington Post to hold their stuff.
I've lost count of how many random papers from the State Department, White House, Congress, et al I have found just floating around in a parking lot, or on the Metro, or on the sidewalk. I think if any terrorist wanted inside info, all he'd have to do is hang out downtown picking up trash, and eventually he'd hit pay dirt.
So, we don't have McAuliffe on record yet explaining the discrepancies in the RATS' story? This ought to be interesting watching T-Mac trying squirm hisself outta this one!!
FReegards...MUD
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