Wasn't it the Bush Administration's Responsibility to Return the Items They Borrowed?

In reply to White House clarifies on Churchill bust - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room
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I can't speak to Pfeiffer. I think it more likely that he was as uninformed as most people seemed to've been about there being two Churchill busts and, believing there was only the one, which he's seen with his own eyes outside the Treaty Room in the residence, said the story about it being sent back was a falsehood. But maybe he did know the truth, and did intentionally lie.

I'm less sold on the rest. The Bush administration received the bust that they had as a loan for the length of his first term, and then that was extended through the length of his second. Doesn't that make the Bush administration responsible for returning it (along with other items they had been loaned for the length of his time in office) at the conclusion of his Presidency? I'm not saying Bush was in the office rolling things up in old newspaper--any more than folks accuing Obama are saying he licked the stamps on the package that sent Churchill #2 back--but wouldn't it be Bush's outgoing transition team making sure all the items loaned to them during their administration were returned?

But ok, let's say the incoming Obama transition team or the permanent White House staff agreed to take care of that for the Bush folks, and that Obama was in office and therefore "responsible" for sending the thing back--and especially for refusing the Brit's offer to extend the loan thru his term(s) in office, which he actually did do, maybe even personally, even. So what?

Why does it show disdain for Churchill, England, Israel, or any other person or country for him not to continue an art loan whose time was up? Apparently, the White House already had a bust of Churchill--which makes one wonder where that one, the one we received as a gift during the Johnson administration, was all during the Bush administration. Did Bush have both on display, or did the Obama administration go to the trouble of getting the original Churchill bust out of storage and displaying it, showing admiration, not contempt, for the man and his country? And for that matter, where was the Churchill bust during the rest of the presidencies since we received it, and would it also show disdain for England if Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton did not have it in the Oval?

And further still, why do some conservatives find it preferable for this Democratic President to have the bust of an Englishman in the Oval Office, rather than a bust of one of the great American Presidents--and a Republican, no less--from whom the man says he draws inspiration?

The whole nontrovercy seems awful silly to me... ...but just the same, maybe we need a congressional inquiry to get to the bottom of the whole mess. I'm most interested in getting a complete tick-tock--finding out exactly where that Churchill bust gifted to the White House during the Johnson administration has been during each Presidential administration, and why Dubya had to get a loaner in the first place. (Did he drop the original and need to get it repaired? Enquiring minds want to know...) The truth is out there...
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Posted Submitted for moderator approval 7/31/12, 2:00 AM (or so) / Posted Submitted for moderator approval 7/31/12, 4:45 PM (or so)

NOTE: I posted a version of this comment to the Hill blog around 2:00 AM, 7/31/12. As I was reading it over right after it appeared, I noticed I misspelled a word, and wanted to change the flow of a sentence or two, and hit edit. When I hit "save changes," a pop-up appeared saying my comment was being held for moderation. 12 hours later, it still hadn't appeared, so I found and adapted a second version I had posted elsewhere--this version--and posted that. Unfortunately, the act of cutting and pasting removed all the paragraph breaks in the resulting comment. I hit edit, put them back in and--knowing what was probably going to happen--hit save changes. Needless to say, the comment is being held for moderator approval, again. But at least I have a copy of this one--though damn, I really do think the first one I submitted and lost was more well-written... I got all the elements in there, I think, but I just couldn't recapture the flow and feel of the original... Oh well, shit happens... (If this comment doesn't appear from moderation either, I'll carefully, CAREFULLY resubmit it again in another 12 hours or so... and make no edits, no matter what happens...

This comment--in it's original, unadapted form--appears at Commentary Magazine: Re: Where’s Winston? � Commentary Magazine The one I posted to The Hill the first time, was the best version, though... Shoulda just left that dang misspelled word...

In Reply: Breasts Come in Pairs, Busts, Not So Much, Part 2

In reply to the following comment at the post: White House clarifies on Churchill bust - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:

Count the Ways, 7/28/12, 01:22 AM in reply to repsac3:

"Nope you got it completely wrong as liberals do. What happened was Romney said:

""I'm looking forward to the bust of Winston Churchill being in the Oval Office again," the presumptive GOP nominee told people at a fundraiser Thursday night."

NOTE Romney said OVAL OFFICE

The Obama administration and this author then CHANGED Romney's words to:
"While on his overseas trip in London, Romney vowed to return the bust to the White House"

Note THEY changed the words to WHITE HOUSE. Why did they do this? So they could then ridicule Romney when they said:

"Pfeiffer knocked reports the bust had been removed and added a photo of President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, taken during the British leader's 2010 visit, looking at the bust to prove it's in the White House. "This is 100 percent false. The bust still in the White House. In the Residence. Outside the Treaty Room," Pfeiffer wrote.."

So the reality is that the Obama Administration was caught in a lie, with the assistance of this author."
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If you believe the whole of thise meme concerns Romney and what he said, I'm glad you're satisfied... You are correct that this article misquotes Romney. He did say "Oval Office" rather than "White House." [...And yes, Pfeiffer either lied, or was just as uninformed about the second bust as everyone else seemingly was, and really believed that the one in the residence was the same one that used to be in the Oval Office. (Keeping in mind that he more'n'likely wasn't the one who packed up the loaner Churchill, or got the gift Churchill out of storage, either. If you you believe there's only one, and you've seen it there outside the Treaty Room with your own eyes, then the people saying it had been sent back to England are obviously mistaken... right?)]

But if you look, though, I didn't mention Romney once in my earlier comment. I'm looking at the whole story, which has been floating around since Feb, 2009, and that seems to be based on a simple sit-com twist--not one Churchill bust, but two--and a whole lotta misplaced animosity toward the current president. YMMV...

(Besides, even though you're right about what Romney said, I suspect that the secret service protecting President Obama in January, 2013 will frown on former Governer Mitt Romney sneaking into the Oval Office with a bust of Churchill that he stole from England back when he was there for the 2012 Olympics under his jacket, even if his intent is to just place it on a shelf somewhere and tiptoe back out.) ((With a h/t to a commenter at Outside The Beltway, who said it first.))

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Edited for clarity (mostly, though I did add that bit about what Pfeiffer said, as well) at 7:00am (I was having issues with my iPad at 2:00am, but saved intended edit for when I got back home to my desktop)

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Posted 7/28/12, 1:57 AM (though like I said, there were some edits made at 7:00 AM)

In Reply: Breasts Come in Pairs, Busts, Not So Much, Part 1

In reply to White House clarifies on Churchill bust - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

So the real story is, the Churchill bust on loan to the Bush administration and displayed in the Oval Office was returned at the conclusion of his Presidency--exactly like it was supposed to be--and was replaced in the Oval Office by a bust of one of the great American (and Republican) Presidents in our history, and that the Obama administration ALSO went to the trouble of locating and displaying the Churchill bust the White House received as a gift back in the 1970's... ...and that these facts are supposed to somehow "prove" that Obama has no respect for Winston Churchill or for England...

Is that the meme some folks are trying to sell?
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Posted 7/28/12, 12:30 AM

In Reply: Two Heads Are NOT Always Better (For one thing, they confuse folks...)

Two comments in reply to Guess What? The Churchill Bust Is Still In The White House (Or At Least One Of Them Is):

“And I’m looking forward to the bust of Winston Churchill being in the Oval Office again,” Romney said, evoking applause from the group that helped the candidate raise more than $2 million for his campaign."

If R-money is elected, he won’t have to add anything. He’ll be a bust in the Oval Office all on his own.

Glad to see the great mystery was solved, however. Churchill never left, AND he was returned to England, as well. Imagine what the rumormongers could’ve done with a third Churchill bust. (WinChurch#3 would most likely be stuck in a closet somewhere with whole bunch of circa 2001 keyboards with missing “W” keys.)
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Posted Friday, July 27, 2012 at 18:37

Y’know… This revelation about there being two Churchill busts elicits more questions than it answers… Where was the Nixon-era bust while the Bush-era bust was in the Oval Office? Were both on display in different places in the White House, or is the truth that, rather than Obama removing a Churchill bust and thereby showing his distain for the man, the Brits, , etc, he (or the staff, obviously) actually went to the trouble of getting the older bust out of storage and putting it on display, showing his admiration for the man and his country?

Enquiring mind want to know… (OK, not really… except in the sense that this silly Churchill meme that was being packaged and sold by these folks may turn out to show the exact opposite of what they hoped to show… I do loves me that kinda irony…)
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Posted Friday, July 27, 2012 at 19:05