Talk:White House travel office controversy

2005 complaints

This article appears to have as its primary source a compilation of the issues from something called "Insight on the News". The top headline on "Insight on the News" today (2/15/05) is "The Party of Hate Picks a Chief". I think we should be able to agree that this is not a source that has fairness as a prime objective.

I suggest that either the article be edited to provide balance (other than the single sentence at the bottom of the page) and to provide content (it does not seem to even mention Robert Ray, his report, or its conclusions), or it should be removed, since it is, at best, a virtually one-sided, incomplete description of the issue. [20:33, 15 February 2005 Es3200]

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good grief. after the 1st two paragraphs, this articles is just 3 or 4 full pages quoted from a congressional committee report about the investigation of the matter. that belongs in wikisource to be referenced. it's hardly an encyclopedia article. [04:40, 13 March 2005 68.108.243.20]

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Very disappointing article. Unfortunately, many people like me who never quite got what the Travelgate "scandal" was actually about, other than harassing Bill Clinton for partisan reasons, will be seriously misled if they read no farther. [09:39, 31 October 2005 69.3.132.100]

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People, do you see the edit button on the article? Good, then use it instead of complaining. Derex @ 17:43, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Article name debate

• 02:48, 29 January 2006 Derex (moved Travelgate to White House travel office controversy: npov)
• 02:26, 9 December 2006 RWR8189 (moved White House travel office controversy to Travelgate: "White House travel office controversy" seems to be a name that exists almost exclusively on Wikipedia, it only get 82 hits on Google, and "travelgate" is much more common.)
• 02:03, 18 December 2006 Derex (moved Travelgate to White House travel office controversy: standard npov naming convention)

BLP removal

I removed a reference to Billy Dale's plea bargain offer.[1] I know that the offer was leaked, and there certainly is reliable sourcing for it, but (1) settlement offers are normally confidential, and are supposed to be kept confidential by DOJ regulations; (2) Dale is at best a limited public figure; and (3) I think smearing someone with his plea bargains raises WP:BLP concerns. The independent counsel report does a good job of summarizing the evidence against Dale, and I would have no objection to that stuff, but settlement offers strike me as tabloidish and inappropriate. Thoughts? TheronJ 13:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi TheronJ. The article is clearly highly partisan in its editing. A tempest in a teapot, it admits employees of the department "serve at the president's pleasure" (i.e. the president does not need Senate confirmation to fire or hire, and then rages on for 4 paragraphs suggesting something here is "political", dark, wrong, etc. CApitol3 03:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Typo

"Written in fall 1973..." I think this is a typo. Context implies this should be 1993 (during Clinton's term). [21:09, 1 July 2007 66.91.211.207]

Fixed. Wasted Time R 00:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Article expanded and reworked

I've almost completely reworked and significantly expanded the article. There are still a few aspects I'd like to fill out better, but it's all pretty much there now. Hopefully it satisfies those who have found the article disappointing or imbalanced in the past. Wasted Time R 00:21, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

A few minor edits

I changed a few lines with obvious POV issues. Such as changing "Clinton-hating magazine" to "conservative". Unless the magazine describes itself as "clinton-hating" or it entire purpose of publishing is to spread hatred for this one individual. Also I deleted references on them doing this to increase revenue sales, it was without citation, and I can't imagine a reliable source that you can cite about their personal motives (unless it is them). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.37.49.120 (talk) 20:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

I edited again the section about "clinton-hating" magazine. I know many people here have passionate view about this, but calling a conservative magazine "clinton-hating" is inappropriate. We need to keep a NPOV and cite sources. Urbansage (talk) 05:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

There are conservative magazines and there are conservative magazines. I've now put in three WP:RS citations about The American Spectator in this era, and about the economic benefit of this and the other scandals of the time. Note that one of the cites, the American Journalism Review article, highlights twice the comparison between American Spectator and the more traditional National Review, the benchmark conservative magazine. That doesn't mean that everything American Spectator wrote was false; as the article says, "real and imagined" (and uses its writer David Brock later confessing to concocting some of the latter as one of its cites). But it did hate Clinton, as the words in these cites ("flaying", "screeds", "ultimate patron of the Clinton haters", etc.) indicates.

Let me ask you something: did you read American Spectator during this period (I did enough) and now disagree with this article's assessment of it? Or did you not read it, but simply think this description of it must be overbaked and non-neutral? This answer will better help me understand your objection. I'm not trying to edit war here, since this is a minor aspect in the overall trajectory of Travelgate. But to do this subject justice, we have to capture the flavor of the times, and the vitriol with which some of Clinton's opponents viewed him is an important part of the historical context. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:46, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Audit/review falsely reported here

<moved here from insert into article itself>
This section ["Initial White House actions"] first references an audit done in early 1993 by KPMG (see above reference that the White House said it had looked at an audit). Then at the end it references a review ordered just before the firings took place that was reviewed prior to the firings. Both of these events are falsely reported here. At the embezzlement trial of Director Billy Dale a KPMG accountant testified. The KPMG accountant stated that no audit was ever performed, rather a review was done. Further the testimony of the accountant was that the review was not finished until after the firings. This would be verfiable if anyone has access to the transcripts from the trial. I do not personally have access to them, but I stand by this statement as I was in the court room when the KPMG accountant testified. The claim of an audit was nothing short of a lie used as justification and to put a good spin on the firings. [21:16, November 17, 2008 67.212.58.250]

I'll try to see what I can find on this. We do include the phrase "According to the White House" in front of the first description of the KPMG review, but I agree we should be more definitive about what it consisted of and when it happened. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:41, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

It was re-inserted into the article again, but I removed it --97.87.142.31 (talk) 01:18, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I've now gone back over this issue. First, our article was incorrect in suggesting there were two different KPMG review/audits; there was only one, starting May 14 and reporting May 17 of 1993. This has been fixed. Second, yes it is true that KPMG did a review not an audit during this period. This was not a revelation at the trial; it was stated by KPMG in the initial stories after the firings (see this May 20, 1993 NYT story), with the reason given that the travel office had so few records that could be audited. This has been added to the article. But everything I've read, including the GAO report, says that the review was finished at the time and the report given to the White House on May 17, contrary to what you say. Third, I've searched online but can't find anything to substantiate what you say about the trial testimony. The closest I came was this Nov 2, 1995 WaPo story on the trial. But it describes a KPMG lawyer getting upset when Dale's defense team kept questioning a KPMG accountant about why the company wouldn't let the defense team interview him earlier. So that really doesn't have anything to do with what you are remembering. Moreover, I haven't found anything that says that the KPMG report was "a lie" or otherwise a sham; indeed, the GAO report of 1994 seems to think the KPMG people did a good job on it (pp. 32-34 of the GAO report, as pointed to in the article). Of course, that doesn't mean that the findings of the KPMG report showed there was criminal behavior or justified the firing of the travel staff; those are separate issues. But pretty much everyone accepts that the travel office was a mess in terms of financial procedures, including the final IC report (in "Findings" section, again as pointed to in the article). Wasted Time R (talk) 20:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Casing of "travel office"

I've tried to adopt a consistent approach to casing "travel office" in the article (which before, wasn't very consistent). References to actions in the specific office in the White House are capitalized, thus for example "had started in the Travel Office in 1961". References to the controversy are not capitalized, thus "complicity in the travel office affair". The rationale for the former is that it is close to the proper name of an orgazination, although not the formal official name, which is a bit more complex, as the article now states. The rationale for the latter is that this controversy never had a formal name, or any consistent name at all (hence "Travelgate", etc) and most books and newspaper articles lowercased references to "travel office affair", "travel office controversy", etc. That seems the reasonable approach for here too. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:40, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Miniscule photos

The press corps photo example is incredibly small. There should be a larger photo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 007patrick (talk • contribs) 05:32, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

If you can find a better one from that era that is public domain, point me to it and I'll add it. I've looked through usa.gov but haven't found one. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:42, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Missing from article:

You know what's missing from this article? The FBI investigation this controversy is based upon. And the outcome of that investigation. And the indictments. 73.170.156.225 (talk) 20:10, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

There are fifteen mentions of the FBI in the article. But it's true that the article didn't really make clear what happened to the initial FBI investigation. I've now added material that traces its course up to the Dale indictment. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:38, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Scandal?

So the "scandal" was that Bill Clinton fired people he was allowed to fire? Goodness, the 1990s were quaint. Carlo (talk) 13:50, 13 April 2024 (UTC)