Dole Ties White House to ‘$23-Million Lie’ : Presidency: Clinton is forced to retreat over joke about the GOP leader’s action on boathouse project after lawmaker issues angry accusation.

President Clinton was forced to retreat Monday in the face of Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole’s angry accusation that the White House had told “a $23-million lie” about a project in his state.

The White House said that Clinton “regrets” any misunderstandings caused by “hyperbole” in a barbed joke the President told that brought the house down Saturday at an annual black-tie dinner hosted by White House correspondents.

Clinton had said that the Republican lawmaker from Kansas was seeking $23 million from the federal government to convert a senior citizens’ center into a boathouse, at the same time that he was assailing Clinton for wasteful “pork barrel” spending.

Dole, who led the Republican battle that scuttled Clinton’s economic stimulus package, first challenged the accuracy of the statement in a television interview show Sunday but he seemed confused about the details. Monday, he flatly denied the claim and issued a belated blast.

“The White House lied,” Dole said, carefully avoiding a direct attack on the President himself. “There’s no $23-million boathouse, no deficit spending, no new money, no connection with the President’s deadbeat ‘stimulus’ bill and no truth coming from a White House staff that is ill-serving the President with these sophomoric attacks.”

Dole said that he had sought a federal waiver to clear the way for privately funded construction of a public boathouse in Wichita.

“If the White House wants to play hardball, I’m ready to suit up,” Dole concluded, sending an ominous signal that the issue could spill over into future relations with Senate Republicans.

George Stephanopoulos, the White House communications director, issued a statement late Monday afternoon.

“The President regrets the misunderstanding that may have been caused by any hyperbole in his jokes at Saturday’s White House dinner,” he said.

“While Sen. Dole did make the case that the Wichita boathouse is a legitimate Community Development Block Grant project, the potential cost to the taxpayer is not as high as stated in the President’s joke,” the statement concluded.

While the war of words may be forgotten, the harshly worded statement by Dole signaled that the lack of harmony between the Senate GOP leader and the Clinton White House could affect the future of the President’s programs in Congress.

Dole is in a key position as commander of 43 Republicans and as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, where the defection from party ranks of a single Democratic senator could block Clinton’s proposed tax increases.

As Dole described the situation, Wichita received $500,000 from the federal government’s Community Development Block Grant program in 1980 to help the city buy a building for use as a senior citizen center.

The center, however, moved to a larger facility in 1992, and the building along the Arkansas River has been standing vacant since then.

Wichita officials, Dole continued, wanted to lease the building to a charitable foundation that intends to use private funds to transform it into a boathouse. To change the use of the building, however, the city was required to seek a waiver from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Dole and Rep. Dan Glickman (D-Kan.), who represents the area in the House, supported the city’s request for a waiver in letters to a HUD regional official. HUD had planned to tear the building down.

The Wichita Eagle Monday quoted an official of the charity, the Arkansas River Foundation, as saying that the boathouse project would cost $850,000 and the funds would come from donations and not the federal government.

“The White House really missed the boat on this one,” Dole said.