Politico' s Ben Smith identifies Peter Orszag, Obama's budget director, as the delinquent who nearly burned down the Executive Office Building during his first week on the job. Lesson learned: Ask first if a fireplace works before starting a fire.
The budget director spoke to Politico on the he refers to as the "the living room." In it, a small red sofa and two hard wooden armchairs face a marble fire place. When Orszag arrived for his first weekend of work on a snowy January day, there were logs neatly stacked. "It still seemed a little suspicious. So I lit a piece of paper to see if it vented," Orszag said. The smoke went up the chimney. "So then we lit a few logs. It was venting. It was fine," he said. The only problem: The Secret Service had capped the building's chimneys. Smoke alarms started going off upstairs, and the building was evacuated. And though Orzag wasn't publicly named as the culprit ("Smoke Linked to Attempt to Use 2nd-Floor Fireplace," was the Washington Post's headline the next day.) the incident remains the source of much amusement inside the White House. "Rahm asked me to send smoke signals to the Hill," Orszag recalled.
Inquiring minds want to know: Has Orszag purchased a carbon offset to compensate for his indulgent use of firewood?