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Berger and his lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said the former Clinton adviser knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket and pants and inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio. He returned most of the documents, but some still are missing. [canada.com]

Stephen,

Your characterization of the Bush administration stretches credulity to the breaking point. This kind of knee jerk partisan response is something you are supposedly against. Sandy Berger obviously broke the law here. If this were a Bush official you would be saying this went straight to the top. Not questioning the ‘timing of the leak’.

It’s not the Democrats who have done the majority of the concealment, though. It took years to get this commission going…

…A Republican congress and a Republican president brought the commission into existence. Five Democrats do indeed serve on the commission, but so do five Republicans, who Bush himself likely appointed. Is there something wrong with this picture?

First you criticize the President for not creating a commission and then you’re criticising him for creating it. Equal members from each party is questionable? I guess a liberal version of fairness would require nine democrats and one republican.

…From the start, Bush has been trying to arrange things so that his people could escape blame and culpability for intelligence and policy failures.

…they try to stall investigators

…Bush greatly fears negative publicity in the press. He’s done his damnedest to prevent unfriendly leaks , to smear and penalize whistleblowers, and to take much of the information about how our government runs into the realms of secrecy.

This is classic diversionary strategy. What about Berger? I don’t see much of a defence of what he did. I see minimizing and an attempt to smear the leaker, whoever that may be, by questioning the ‘timing’ of the leak. It very much fits the profile of what you are accusing Bush of doing. But what about the substance of the issue? Did Berger break the law by smuggling notes and actual top secret documents and then destroying them?

Stephen:

You give Berger a pass so easily. You’ve now found him totally innocent of anything other than making a “boneheaded mistake”. It may well be just that—but we dont know yet.

The whole thing does beg the question of why someone of Berger’s stature would be so remiss in following the rules. He says he intentionally took his own notes out, which is a direct violation as well. So that lets us know there was SOME intent at least to break the rules. It could be similar to a college kid taking a reference book from the library, knowing its wrong, but needing to do some extra work. Or it could be more.

Remember that Watergate started with a piece of tape on a door lock. Seemed pretty innocuous but it ended up tearing down a President (and deservedly so).

I’m not accusing Berger of anything at this point, other than his admission of doing something stupid. But to simply whitewash it away doesnt make any sense either.

Lastly, seems real logical that the Repubs held on to this info and “leaked” it just now. That’s part of the political game unfortunately. Remember when someone anonymously “leaked” info about Bush being caugh for DUI in Maine——was there any question who was behind it and why they timed it as they did?

I’d like a scenario where these kinds of games dont get played, but for one side to play the games, then want different rules for the other team is just plain silly.

No, Eric, it’s not kneejerk. I generally like to take notes when I want to remember something. If his purpose was only to steal files, why is he taking notes? Hmmmm. Perhaps he’s making a list of more file to steal! Muhahahaha! Seriously, the question of whether he broke the law IS clear. He’s not denying he screwed up. He’s even resigned from the Kerry campaign. Frankly I think it was a bonehead mistake, possibly committed out of the habit of having access to such files.

As for my criticism of the president regarding the set-up of the commission, I’m simply saying that Bush set up the commission as a bipartisan affair, and had every opportunity to screen out the ideologues. If there’s any partisan bias to this commission, he and the Republicans only have themselves to blame. And in case you haven’t noticed, I am not the one whose complained about the partisanship of the commission. I’m happy with the make up! I’m happy that even the Republicans who might want to stick with Bush are finding troubling things out. I’m just not happy that everytime Bush hears something he doesn’t like from them, he’s screaming about liberal bias.

As for defending Berger, I don’t. I call what he did a boneheaded mistake. That’s not a defense, that’s a criticism. And I think it’s justified. If Berger really had done something nasty enough to justify worse criticism, he’d be perp-walked by now.

As for the destruction of documents, we can only say that about one, and as far as I know, it wasn’t even an original. The other documents were recovered with Sandy Berger’s cooperation. I do believe the timing is suspicious as is the very existence of a leak. Things don’t just get leaked from the Bush Administration. They get let out on purpose, and often quite coincidentally during politically sensitive periods. Like the time before the 9/11 report. If Berger was the one they were going for, they could have hit him any time in the last year. It just happens that this comes out days before the report, and the Democrat convention. It just happens that the Republicans are ready with imflammatory comments to muddy the effectiveness of a largely negative report. As for charges that Bush is fanatically secretive, I would direct you to Worse Than Watergate, by former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean. When a former Nixon White House official talks about excessive secrecy in an administration, it would be wise for you to listen.

Berger’s issues are a diversion not because they are untrue, but because there is a consensus on the unwiseness of his actions already, and the Republicans are using this to openly challenge the findings of a Bipartisan commission.

I think this is a boneheaded mistake that also happens to be against the law. I think Berger should be held accountable by law. But it is also my understanding that everything he mistakenly took was noticed by the archivist, returned the next day, looked into and subsequently dismissed by the CIA- because although it was against the law - it was also an unintentional mistake and it was in preparation for the 911 Commission (I can see taking legal action if it was part of some evil plot- but he’s trying to help the govennment get this stupid comission taken care of- I’m many of these type of mistakes have similarly gone uncharged)..

Of course it is now blown out of proportion, but this is the season of hot politics and it is to be expected. I just hope it gets wrapped up in a civil manner.

Personally I think this is not half as bad as the Plame outing or even this whole ordeal, which happens to be concerning non-classified documents, but the intention seems much more subversive than what Berger was up to.

My two cents on this: Every time I hear about a classified document or hard drive being mis-handled by a government employee, I think about those people I personally know who have such access. Without exception they are the messiest most disorganized people I know, practically drowning in piles of papers.

10 years ago I bought a computer that used to be owned by a CIA agent. The agent left tons of emails with his contacts on the hard drive! I wiped the drive, naturally.

The reality is that the intelligence community is often very informal about this stuff, particularly at the higher levels. If you think about this particular situation, it makes you wonder: Why did they let him bring his briefcase into the space in the first place? Why did they let him write stuff down on paper if he wasn’t allowed to remove notes? Why didn’t they search him on his way out? Why didn’t someone keep an eye on him more closely? Why? Because the entire intelligence community is shockingly informal (i.e., sloppy) about this kind of thing.

I do think that it sounds like Berger screwed up pretty badly, and I am genuinely concerned about what such a screw up means about his abilities as an administrator. But knowing what little I know about how intelligence people behave, I am a little bit reluctant to think of his misdeeds as part of a deliberate and cunning plan. Still, sloppy as he might be, it doesn’t excuse him from not being diligent about avoiding removing documents from the secure area. We’ll see how it turns out.

I also wanted to add that Dennis Hastert’s allegations that Berger was trying to remove documents in order to prevent the 9/11 Commission and the world from seeing them (“What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of experience in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering our nation’s most sensitive secrets?”) is either evidence of how absolutely cynical and conniving he is - or how stupid he is. I’m pretty sure Hastert’s not stupid, and I hope Americans aren’t dumb enough to believe what he’s saying. Anyone with a brain knows that Berger was not looking at the only copies of those documents! The way Hastert is massaging this story to score political points with those Americans ignorant of the details of the story is really surprising to me.

-Cf

Stephen,

It sure doesn’t look like an honest mistake. It looks very deliberate. With knowledge he was breaking the law.

The documents in question were never taken from the archive…

I’m factchecking here but if he didn’t take anything out of the archives would this even be an issue?

For instance, why do you need all five or six drafts of a document?

…A government official with knowledge of the probe said Berger removed from archives files all five or six drafts of a critique of the government’s response to the millennium terrorism threat, which he said was classified “codeword,” the government’s highest level of document security.

…After one of his visits to the Archives last fall, one of the government officials said, Berger was alerted to the missing documents and later returned some of the materials. On subsequent visits by Berger, Archives staffers specially marked documents he reviewed to try to ensure their return. But the government official said some of those materials also went missing, prompting Archives staffers to alert federal authorities. [instapundit]

Taking notes is not unusual either. But, the notes stay there. It is illegal to take the notes out of the room because they become copies of top secret documents and he knew that too.

Berger’s attorneys have acknowledged that he removed numerous classified memos, and apparently discarded some, as he reviewed materials on behalf of the Clinton administration for the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They said the removal of documents was inadvertent but that Berger was aware he was violating the law when he removed his handwritten notes without submitting them for review by National Archives staff. [washingtonpost.com]

Pretty fast and loose with National Security I’d say. Or perhaps the rules don’t apply to those who are smarter and wiser than the rest of us?

I’d like to know who should be ‘taking responsibility’ for this as the title suggests?

Any “thinking” person realizes that a former Sercurity Advisor knows removing the types of material that Sandy Berger stuffed down his pants was wrong. Why can’t you liberals admit that he is trying to protect Clinton.

Christopher:

i think Hastert is giving the Democrats a little bit of what they perhaps have coming. Dems have been asking cynical (or stupid) questions about Bush (what did he know, and when did he know it) as well as making veiled accusations(as Terry Mc etc all have done) in the form of questions.

I suspect Hastert is simply using this opportunity to get back at Dems for this. Of course, Dems say they are just getting back at Repubs for what they did to Clinton. And Repubs are getting back at Dems for what happened to Robert Bork. And Dems…… And Repubs……

I’d really like for our nation’s leaders to NOT need kindergarten level advice on how to get along. I’d like to NOT have to tell them that two wrongs dont make a right, and that you should treat people with respect, even when you disagree.

But…such is that state of our fair nation.

Typical liberal response. When a patriot makes a mistake, you view it as a conspiracy. Liberals according to you cannot be guilty of any wrong - Berger must have made a “mistake”.

Traitors belong in Gitmo.

ejcomputerguy, all you comment does is demonstrate your ability to pre judge before you have any of the evidence or facts about the nature of the material missing, the motive for its removal, etc.

The act of taking them is a crime, there appears to be general agreement. For any other statements to be made, a whole lot more investigation and information is required. May I suggest you withhold your prejudice until something more concrete comes out.

But if speculation is your cup of tea, is it possible Berger is demonstrating for us what happened to Bush’s military records?

It sure doesn’t look like an honest mistake. It looks very deliberate. With knowledge he was breaking the law.

I think CF’s argument deals with that fairly well.

For instance, why do you need all five or six drafts of a document?

To trace the evolution of the policy. What got kept in, what got left out, what got changed. This is important because it goes to how the administration reacted over time to information and intelligence.

I’d like to know who should be ‘taking responsibility’ for this as the title suggests?

So far, it seems like Berger has taken full responsibility for his errors. You seem intent on granting him no mercy for his sloppiness and informality with secret documents. Never mind that your source article says that all the documents he removed were copies, which makes the “rewriting history” explanation pretty thin. (Such revisionists usually go for the original) Never mind that such informality is part of the culture. never mind that the man is known to be a little messy, absentminded with documents. Nevermind that he’s cooperated when asked. Of course, you’re far more merciful with your own people.

In Plan of Attack Woodward recounts how Rumsfeld and another official showed one of the Saudi ruling family a map marked as forbidden to show to foreigners. They even let him copy it down, if I remember correctly. Additionally, somebody in your administration with pretty high clearance blew Valerie Plame’s cover. And then there was that nice little “Case Closed” release of that intelligence document with those data points about Iraq on them.

In each case, sloppiness could not be a factor. The secretary of defense does not let somebody make copies of a map like that by accident. As for the leaks, accidental leaks are a rare thing at the saran-wrapped Bush White House. Somebody high up knowingly gave the world the identity of a NOC agent. We were lucky she wasn’t the kind of NOC who runs agents. Somebody high up also gave the data points, unprocessed intelligence, to the New Republic.

So what do you say? Do our intelligence laws not count for Bush administration officials? Bergers’ cooperated with investigations relating to those laws. What about your people?

It seems like we have one of two possibilities here. And I don’t know which would be more troubling.

a) Berger deliberately stole a number of classified documents for some as yet unknown reason and is now lying about it, saying, jeez, I’m just a completely inept and disorganized, bumbling slob—sorry.

or

b) the national security chief under Clinton really was a totally inept, disorganized, bumbling slob—someoneprone to lose piles and piles of documents, the content of which he has forgotten.

“Gosh, the report on Al Qaida’s latest activities? Al who did you say? Let’s see… my dry-cleaning receipts, food wrappers, yesterday’s cross-word puzzle… I thought I had it around here somewhere…”

Either explanation, corruption or gross incompetence, goes a long way in accounting for the national security failings under Clinton that left this country wide open on 9-11.

Stephen,

I hope you’re aware of the fact, that it is no accident that Eric and joebagodonuts were the first two respondents in your Comment thread here. And, the debate has taken a similar course as the recent Micheal Moore bank and rifle debate, the Bin Laden/Saudi family flights and the Joe Wilson debate - a whole lotta bloviating hurbis over Berger’s boneheaded antics, which Martin could not even manufacture a malicious motive or intent.

You took a perfectly fine examination of the machinations, hypocrisy and deceptions of this administration, then led it off with some Conservative brand ‘red meat’(Berger).

By perpetuating this non-scandal debate, it gives outrageous assertions like Dennis Hastert’s, time to be massaged and repeated ad naseum by Conservatives into a half-truth, then mentioned every time Fox brings up the 9/11 Commissions report!

Be cognitive of the fact, that Republicans will only crossover to argue similar subject matter like Whoopi Goldberg, Linda Ronstadt and the NAACP, while other posts of ours (on substantive and more important issues), go begging.

I think it is time to return the favor.

Was taking the copies out against the law, or just against procedure? I read somewhere it was just against procedure.

In any case, the 9/11 commission has said the contents of the two or three documents still missing don’t affect their report.

And you gotta admit, Berger’s acting like a responsible adult: he admitted he made a mistake, took action to correct it, and is cooperating fully with the investigation. If only all of our government officials would display that kind of character.

And Bert, I agree. There’s never anything of substance on the red side. Do conservatives actually have an agenda other than being negative and anti-Kerry?

I think the majority of folks are inclined to wait for the complete story on this. Right now it’s just “sources” and the other usual suspects on both sides filling the news media.

However, if Berger has always been all that sloppy, as suggested by Bill “We all laughed about it” Clinton, then I suppose it does make one wonder why he was ever given that level of responsibility in the first place.

But as long as our national security hasn’t been compromised by Bergers “mistakes” then I can’t get too excited about it.

I was never a Clinton/Gore fan, mostly because I felt that those years, especially the first two or three of them, seemed like amateur night in DC and this could well be just one more example of that.

I was secretly hoping that there would be an anti-Berger post on this side, or a pro-Berger post on right-side column. Sadly, it was too much to hope for. None of Berger’s explanations make even the little bit of sense (he ACCIDENTLY took documents on FIVE seperate occassions?! which is what his lawyer admitted. Come on now- you guys cant possibly be that partisan). On the other hand, I cannot think of any particualarly bad motives for doing what he did. The best theory I have heard was by Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC last night- that is, the documents were so long and complex that he felt like he needed to have them in his personel possession to adequately prepare himself for his 9/11 commish testimony. That may or may not be true- but I think the following two theories are probably completely ridiculous: (1) he accidentally took the documents five times- I think you need to be a pretty hardcore partisan to buy this; (2) he took documents to destroy them because they were incriminating- this doesnt make sense either, because they were only copies.

I understand why this issue is partisan in Washington- everything is. But I cant understand why it needs to carry over onto this board.

Bert:

I have a suspicion that you first read the author’s name, make your decision to agree or disagree, and then and ONLY THEN, you read the post. You lump my post with others and claim that its “a whole lotta bloviating hurbis(sp)”.

My post was very even handed. I said that Berger made a dumb mistake, which he has admitted to. I said also that it wouldnt be prudent to simply dismiss the whole thing without looking into it (something you KNOW you would be howling for if only it were a Republican involved). And I agreed that the timing is not a mistake, but rather part of the normal game playing that is our political system.

Even you should be able to admit that someone of Berger’s experience and stature should have known better. And part of it is that he CHOSE to break the rules—-(“Breuer said Berger knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket and pants”).

I generally agree with Joe Lieberman about how to proceed: “unless we learn otherwise, I have to assume that what Sandy said was right — that any removal of documents was inadvertent. But it is serious.”

We shouldnt jump to convict the guy, but neither should we whitewash the issue. It bears looking into.

Misha, your explanation, which is quite sound, overlooks another equally rational explanation: That Berger has a casual disregard for the rules about some kinds of classified documents, and as a result he was careless about which documents landed in which pile. He may have even carelessly figured it was okay to take his notes with him. My guess, and I could be wrong, is that such disregard is common among people at his level and even among intelligence officers at lower levels. If you were to rummage through Richard Clarke’s house or Paul Wolfowitz’s car or Richard Armitage’s PC, my guess is that you’d find tons of classified documents that aren’t supposed to leave their offices.

Again, this is not based on partisan rationalization. This is based on me actually finding classified documents in houses, cars, and PCs!

-Cf

Misha:

I also saw Lawrence last night and thought he made a lot of sense. And did Ann Coulter really agree with him? Wow, I thought she was just a GOP hit person.

She also shook her head in agreement when he said that it was probably the Democrats and not the GOP that leaked the story. His reasoning was very sound; get this out now before the convention and not during or after. The fact that Kerry cut him the next day only adds credibility to this theory.

The Berger spokesperson they had on was a standard Democrat hack. Even after Scarborough gave him that Bush was horrible and 9/11 was his fault completely, he kept dodging any question of wrongdoing by Berger. Stick to those talking points!

So far, it seems like Berger has taken full responsibility for his errors. You seem intent on granting him no mercy for his sloppiness and informality with secret documents.

Frankly it’s suspicious. The more we hear about this case the more inexplicable it becomes. It’s not about mercy or sloppiness or informality with secret documents.

There may be such sloppiness throughout the government with secret documents. Most ‘secret’ documents in the hands of your average federal employee (especially when they are the author of them) are probably not national security documents guarded 24 hours a day. These were. Possibly too many federal documents are considered ‘secret’ than really deserve the label. There are undoubtedly many levels of secrecy and importance.

This does not sound like sloppiness to me. It sounds premeditated and deliberate.

Former national security adviser Sandy Berger repeatedly persuaded monitors assigned to watch him review top-secret documents to break the rules and leave him alone, sources said Wednesday.

Berger, accused of smuggling some of the secret files out of the National Archives, got the monitors out of the high-security room by telling them he had to make sensitive phone calls.

…Berger also took “lots of bathroom breaks” that apparently aroused some suspicion, the source added.

…The same archives monitors told the FBI that Berger was observed stuffing his socks with handwritten notes about files he reviewed that were going to the Sept. 11 panel. It is prohibited to make notes about the secret files and leave with them without special approval.

“Stuffed socks and pockets is real,” the senior law enforcement official said. “The (theft) was reported by the guards.” [macon.com]

But for what reason? At the very least it is embarrassing. If the ‘timing’ of the leak is suspect, why aren’t Berger’s actions? I’ll tell you plainly, I think I would have waited to leak this until Kerry announced Berger as a potential Secretary of State or something or during the Democratic convention.

Never mind that your source article says that all the documents he removed were copies, which makes the “rewriting history” explanation pretty thin. (Such revisionists usually go for the original) Never mind that such informality is part of the culture. never mind that the man is known to be a little messy, absentminded with documents. Nevermind that he’s cooperated when asked. Of course, you’re far more merciful with your own people.

Some were copies and some were actually originals. Which brings us back to taking 5-6 copies of the same document.

And seeing as how the 9/11 commission report does not look to be damaging or damning of the President in particular it dosn’t make sense to say Rove leaked this to preempt that.

In Plan of Attack Woodward recounts how Rumsfeld and another official showed one of the Saudi ruling family a map marked as forbidden to show to foreigners. They even let him copy it down, if I remember correctly. Additionally, somebody in your administration with pretty high clearance blew Valerie Plame’s cover. And then there was that nice little “Case Closed” release of that intelligence document with those data points about Iraq on them.

There is a precedent for sharing intelligence between top officials, Stephen. Especially when you need the support of key ‘allies’ in the middle east, unless you actually beleive we should be truly unilateral.

The Saudi’s wanted regime change in Iraq as much as the Bush Administration did. Very multilateral eh?

Bush also wanted it known that he was serious about Iraq. He asked Bandar what had happened with the Clinton Administration, and Bandar described how, in October of 1994, King Fahd had told Clinton that neither country could afford to have Saddam Hussein remain in power, from a military, political, or economic point of view. Fahd, Bandar said, suggested that Saudi Arabia and the United States spend as much on covert operations to get Saddam as they had in Afghanistan to oust the Soviets-about a billion dollars each. The Saudis, in fact, were willing to spend more. Fahd told Clinton that he had rounded up support for the plan from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and even Iran. They shook hands on it, Bandar told Bush, but nothing came of it. “For six years, we’ve been given the runaround,” he said. “Therefore everybody here”-in Saudi Arabia-“adjusted to cover their rear ends.” [saudi-us-relations.org]

Blowing Plame’s cover was definitely a mistake, intended or not, it was wrong. But are you sure that it wasn’t just ‘sloppiness’ and ‘informality’?

Eric:
> I’ll tell you plainly, I think I would have waited
> to leak this until Kerry announced Berger as a
> potential Secretary of State or something or during
> the Democratic convention.

Presidential candidates *never* announce specific cabinet members before the election. An exception was Bush in 2000getting visibly chummy with Colin Powell, but that’s only because Bush was desperate to hint at some foreign policy credibility, and even then he never explicitly announced his choices. Candidates don’t need the baggage of having more people’s pasts to check out, particularly someone like Berger who is not only a household name and a much admired war hero like Powell, but also a Clinton insider. Kerry would never do what you suspect.

-Cf

Alright, Eric, give me the source that tells you he took originals. Also, tell me how this particular allegation of sock stuffing differs from the previous one. We’re still working on the unnamed senior law enforcement official here, which sounds to me like the leak. Give me a name for this guy, a name that goes back to somebody who can be held accountable for their allegations.

Not that I don’t think that Berger may have a less than innocent explanation. As I see it, he could have believed he was entitled to do this, to take notes and documents to review at his leisure, and deliberately circumvented the law to get it done. In which case he deserves the trouble he gets for it.

But what doesn’t deserved to be dragged through the mud is the 9/11 report. It scares me that not a moment after some kind of partisan politics enters the fray of the 9/11 commission hearings that all of a sudden your people jump on it as evidence of partisanship. It was like you didn’t want to believe that your people could fall short, too, and that Clinton wasn’t as negligent as you wanted to believe.

I wrote this post after hearing the obscenely divisive language of Hastert and DeLay addressing the 9/11 commission issue. Of the cuff, with very little information, they suddenly declare the conclusions of the 9/11 commission in doubt, with no case made as to why or how this compromise works itself out.

Question is, what do they have to gain from doing that? Perhaps they’ve got a Yoda Complex (“Our own counsel shall we keep on homeland security!”). Perhaps they’re so deep into the whole limited government bit that they balk at any calls for new agencies or whatever. Maybe their definition of what counts for bias and ours differ somewhat. Who Knows? But what I do know is that without solid evidence, they questioned the validity of a report meant to help safeguard us against the next terrorist attack. If our shores again suffer attack because they couldn’t get off their dead asses and take the threat of Al Quaeda style terrorism seriously, then those like them will bear the responsibility. This is not exactly the kind of incident we should have to experience twice to get the point of.

It’s a shame that partisan politics, and the mistakes (or crimes) of one witness out of many should dull us to that point.

joebagodonuts,

Actually, my WB Comment thread reading always starts at the beginning of post, and often times ends in, ‘oh, no wonder!’.

Yes, your comments about Berger were even handed, but I lumped you in with the rest of your Republican cohorts for desperately trying to manufacture this screw up, into a full scale scandal! I wrote:

By perpetuating this non-scandal debate, it gives outrageous assertions like Dennis Hastert’s, time to be massaged and repeated ad naseum by Conservatives into a half-truth, then mentioned every time Fox brings up the 9/11 Commissions report!

I would only agree the matter is worth looking into, if, by now, you would’ve come up with a motive or illegal intent on Berger’s part. Therefore, your true motive for pursuing this matter is highly suspect.

I’m suspicious of Berger. I think in the war on terrorism when dealing with such highly sensitive leaks, we need to investigate and if necessary prosecute to the fullest extent. I think the same thing about the Plame leak.

I agree that Berger has been cooperative but the documents were already out. The point isn’t about being contrite, it’s about the leak. Something needs to be done. We need to get across that this won’t be tolerated, from anyone.

This kind of thing is ridiculous. We look like a bunch of clowns.

When you add it all up, with stuff like Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, the intelligence failures surrounding 911 and Iraq, the DIA getting played by Ahmed Chalabi, our inability to find Osama, the Plame leak, and now Sandy Berger, we look like incompetent fools.

I don’t care about bad timing. I don’t care about political underpinnings. This is serious stuff. We can’t just brush it off as absent-mindedness.

Sandy Berger made a Boneheaded mistake, but he did not attempt to rewrite history

I beg to differ. He stole every draft and copy of a certain after-action report, written by a cretain Mr.Clarke, that was apparently very critical of Mr. Clinton.

In doing so he prevented the 9/11 panel from seeing it and making a true ruling on the performance of Mr. Clinton up to 2000.

Bert:

Are you really suggesting that before any investigation, you have to have figured out why someone did something?
“I would only agree the matter is worth looking into, if, by now, you would’ve come up with a motive or illegal intent on Berger’s part. Therefore, your true motive for pursuing this matter is highly suspect.”

Wow, lets see how that works out. Hmmm, they havent yet really figured out why Scott Peterson might have killed Lacy, so I guess lets toss that case out. They never truly had a rationale for OJ to kill Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown, so toss that case out too. Etc Etc.

Bert, that’s really an ignorant standard to hold people to. Apply that to Watergate and BEFORE they investigated, they would have had to figure out why the “plumbers” were burglarizing the Watergate Hotel. Don’t you realize that the investigation is HOW you come up with the reason?

Also, you correctly said I was even handed, yet you still lumped me in with those you say are NOT even handed=——-why?

Lastly, there are a number of possible reasons that Berger did what he did. Some of them are nefarious, and others are innocent. To NOT check it out would be wrong. Since this happened a number of months ago, perhaps they have done some investigating already. If so, release the findings. If not, investigate now.

Bert, again, you KNOW—-and anyone who has read your posts knows too—-that if a Republican did what Berger did, you would be calling for independent prosecutors and the whole shooting match. What a partisan hack!

What crime do we have here? A simple breach of security, An attempt to destroy documents, or espionage? Until we have the facts we don’t know what Berger was up to, and most importantly, what he wasn’t up to. Motivations are important because motives dictate behaviors, and behaviors determine what evidence one might have reason to look for. Heck, the Laci Peterson case is all motive, all establishment of why, short of hard evidence, Scott Peterson should be imprisoned for his wife and unborn child’s murder.

Going off a previous point of mine, it is important to note that with all the breaches of security that have gone on in the Bush administration, including that map thing, there’s either been a consensus for investigation, or a calm call for investigation if anything at all.

Ynot:
Well, your opinion differs from the facts presented by the archives, which claims that all the originals of those documents still exist. I don’t know, but I’d think they might be authoritative on the subject. I think you can even look in Eric’s articles and you’ll find them saying that.

I believe your argument is the GOP’s way of resisting the imposition of a new organizational plan, one that would run contrary to that they already built up in the wake of 9/11, and which might take the steam out of some of their agenda items. I understand this. But the question is, are we going to stay with the kneejerk, uninformed reaction to terrorism we started with, or are going to take an informed, competent approach to this. Already, your people are whining “it can’t be done, it can’t be done” I think your people should be ashamed of themselves. Get them on the campaign trail, and it’s taking the initiative on the war on terrorism. Get them back in the House and Senate, and it’s see you after the elections. Even John McCain is disgusted with that idea. How long do we need to wait? How much longer will your party drag its feet on a subject they claim to lead this nation on? Will it take a second high casualty attack to spur you into motion?

Alright, Eric, give me the source that tells you he took originals.

I heard it on the news Stephen, I’m pretty sure I did. But google is not favoring me today. Which means that it may not have been in print.

But in looking I found an interesting tidbit… from the 9/11 commission report.

46. NSC email, Clarke to Kerrick,“Timeline,”Aug. 19, 1998; Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004). We did not find documentation on the after-action review mentioned by Berger. On Vice Chairman Joseph Ralston’s mission in Pakistan, see William Cohen interview (Feb. 5, 2004). For speculation on tipping off the Taliban, see, e.g., Richard Clarke interview (Dec. 18, 2003).

And to what does footnote (46) refer? On p. 117, Chapter 4, we find this:

Later on August 20, Navy vessels in the Arabian Sea fired their cruise missiles. Though most of them hit their intended targets, neither Bin Ladin nor any other terrorist leader was killed. Berger told us that an after-action review by Director Tenet concluded that the strikes had killed 20–30 people in the camps but probably missed Bin Ladin by a few hours. Since the missiles headed for Afghanistan had had to cross Pakistan, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was sent to meet with Pakistan’s army chief of staff to assure him the missiles were not coming from India. Officials in Washington speculated that one or another Pakistani official might have sent a warning to the Taliban or Bin Ladin. (46)

How about that? How many times have we heard Clinton say that he missed Bin Ladin by just a few hours? Yet the after-action report is missing, so the Commission relied on Sandy Berger’s testimony. [justoneminute]

Joe,

Ever hear the term ‘fishing expedition’? Seems to me, in order to have an investigation, there should be an alleged, suspected crime involved? When a woman is killed, the first suspect you eliminate is the husband. The Watergate burglars did break into the offices of the Democratic National Commitee, right?

Why can’t you come up with a plausible, conspiratorial motive for Berger’s stupidity? Is it because every preferrable scenario dreamed up by the Republicans has so far been discounted? Your still sifting thru the ‘nefarious’ and ‘innocent’ motives, hoping to find just the right one?

The difference between us, Joe, is I do not need to argue issues in an atmosphere of conjecture, hyperbole, half truths, and even, a perception of impropriety, which is the preferred venue of you Conservatives, today. Very often, my posts find no commentary from your side, I suspect, because they are framed in a sourced and detailed manner, not suitable at all to you.

Remember the revised data that radically refuted the ‘rosy scenario’ numbers of the 2003 Terrorism Report? We took the word of the only credible voice left in this administration, that there was no chicanery involved.

So much for your ‘partisan hack’!

It’s interesting to see those who’ve attacked Bush and other administration officials on the basis of evidence far weaker than that implicating Berger (in fact, weak to the point of being non-existent) take such a judicious wait-and-see attitude now that one of their own is on the line.

I only wish that such a responsible attitude would have prevailed during the stories about Bush’s National Guard service, the O’Neil/Clarke phase of speculative innuendo and the “we gave WMD’s to Iraq and trained Bin-Laden” stories.

Anybody care to point to one scrap of evidence that shows Cheney or Bush have made a financial profit from the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan? Can’t be done—not that reality will stop the left from believing and repeating it seven days a week.

Try using the “Berger defense” at your local department store. “I’m just careless and sloppy, officer. I don’t know how all this merchandise got stuffed into my pants!” Or better yet, “I’m a registered Democrat, officer. Don’t you know that that puts me on the side of the angels?”

We now know that Berger’s suspicious behavior was alarming archivists who could tell that he was
a href=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4189-2004Jul21.html?nav%3Drss_politics
“>up to something shady.

Contrast the reaction to this story with the implosion of Joe Wilson, the revelation by the 9-11 commission that Richard Clarke’s testimony was deliberatly doctored to contradict his earlier testimony and shape it into a book-selling Bush-bash (commission members are saying that CBS/Viacom and Clarke set a partisan “ambush” for them), and Lord Hutton’s findings that nobody can be shown to have “lied” about WMDs, even if-the intelligence agencies failed to get it right.

And now the 9-11 commission says there’s evidence that Iraq offered sancturary to bin Laden himself, in his unholy flesh, but he turned them down, preferring Afghanistan! No tie to Al Qaida indeed!

Really, what remains at this point of the left’s various conspiracy theories and partisan fantasies about Bush? Nothing but an attitude, a hope, a dream, a delusion… the whole house of cards has come crashing down, and all they can hope for is that, in legal parlance, “you can’t unring the bell” and the public will prove suitably gullible.

Lies on page one. Retractions on page 15 in the smallest font possible.

Bert, your insistence that a “motive” has to be supplied at this stage is very much beside the point. If you steal, rob, rape, murder, commit any crime whatsoever, the police don’t have to know your motive before realizing that there’s been a crime. In fact, you can be convicted and incarcerated without anyone ever knowing your motive. “Motive” is just one factor, and a circumstantial one at that, used to determine whether a crime was commmited. A crime has clearly been commited here, so questions of “motive” will have to be dealt with later. What was Ted Bundy’s motive? Jeez, I don’t know. I guess he must have been innocent then.

Eric, let’s say for the moment, in the good old fashioned American way, that Berger is innocent of causing the disappearance of the after-action report until proven guilty.

Have you or anybody else eliminated other possibilities as to why the document wasn’t found? I mean, y’all will look pretty stupid if you accuse him of this, and days later, somebody in the National Archives says “Here! I found it!” I’d say look for the document first. Heck, find out if anybody’s found it in the half-year since. As for hearing sources from the news, My habit is to check things out with multiple sources before I start saying them too.

Martin-
the evidence is there, you just won’t acknowledge it, acknowledge all the caveats, contradictions, and what not. You talk about speculative innuendo with Clarke and O’Neill.

All year, as one source after another has come forward casting factual doubt on the case for war with Iraq and Bush’s performance on 9/11, the Bush strategy is to read every revelation it can out of context that makes them look good. Problem is, that page three item you cite is usually weak, and the page ten item makes your people look like raging dumbasses.

Berger did something completely and utterly stupid, perhaps even arrogantly so. He will have to live with the consequences. Find me a Democrat here on this board who’s said he shouldn’t have to. We aren’t that stupid, most of us at least.

You talk about the implosion of Joe Wilson. Well, maybe he’s no longer the hero of the story, but still, the endings the same. If you had taken care to read far enough, you would know that his conclusions about the letter are the committees.

Iraq had an interest in obtaining nuclear materials, but it was so hemmed in by the international community and the sanctions, that it’s chances of getting it were between slim and none. The letter was supposed to allege that Iraq had come to a commercial understanding with Niger. Not only was this demonstrated to be impossible, due to business arrangements, it also proved unlikely that such material would get smuggled out. Oh, and by the way, the letter is still considered fake. All Wilson did was conflate his own investigation of the letter (which the CIA did not find dubious in its results) With that of the IAEA. You would have to claim the IAEA is full of it to get any progress against the factual matter of his claims

Anybody care to point to one scrap of evidence that shows Cheney or Bush have made a financial profit from the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan? Can’t be done—not that reality will stop the left from believing and repeating it seven days a week.

Have you managed to disprove that oh so spurious charge that Cheney retains his Halliburton shares in trust by means of a loophole in financial divestment laws? Or that the Carlyle Group has indeed employed the man’s father for the last several years? Maybe you can disprove the assertion that James Bath used Bin Laden money to fund Bush’s failed business ventures. There seem to be an awful lot of conflicts of interests going on here for a men who are supposed to be unentangled by such affairs. The worst part for you, is that these are not innuendoes, but facts. The interpretations may vary, but the facts look bad by themselves.

…the revelation by the 9-11 commission that Richard Clarke’s testimony was deliberatly doctored to contradict his earlier testimony and shape it into a book-selling Bush-bash (commission members are saying that CBS/Viacom and Clarke set a partisan “ambush” for them)

The revelation? One commission member, among the most conservative, makes a passing comment about that, and you deem it a revelation?

And what’s your source on the whole Partisan Ambush thing? I heard about the first item, what about the second? Unlike you I prefer context to emotional punch.

As for the Lord Hutton report, it clears them (supposedly) of maliciously doctoring the evidence. It says nothing about getting it utterly wrong. You may find hope and restoration in the idea that your people aren’t be accused of fraud, but to do that, you’re ignoring the stuff that makes your people look like incompetent or overly ideological thinkers.

And who is it coming up with these reports? Often friendly partisans, who are unlikely to follow some of the more troubling evidence to its conclusions, who are willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

As for Iraq offering Sanctuary, it’s obviously the other way around. The issue is deal with on page 5 of the fifteenth staff statement saying:

Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded.

If this is your idea of vindication, I’d hate to see what happens when you’re discredited.

Really, what remains at this point of the left’s various conspiracy theories and partisan fantasies about Bush? Nothing but an attitude, a hope, a dream, a delusion… the whole house of cards has come crashing down, and all they can hope for is that, in legal parlance, “you can’t unring the bell” and the public will prove suitably gullible.

Oh, I hate to disillusion you when you’re in such a fine mood, but if the above paragraph describes anybody, it describes you and yours, rather than me and mine. We’re not selectively quoting from reports rich with criticisms of our policies in order to look good. We’re not elevating every misstep on the other side to the level of a capital crime to hide from a report that doesn’t kiss our butts. The house of cards is Bush’s continually changing story on what we went to war to face. Did we go there to face a growingthreat before it hit us, or to eliminate an unfriendly government because it was vaguely thinking of being a threat to us sometime a decade from now? The Bush Admininstration’s response to questions and criticisms on this subject has been to repeatedly assert that Saddam was a bad man who had to go. But in a world where certain bad men are bigger threats than others, sometimes you have to chose the greater of the two evils. Right now, Osama was a greater evil. Saddam had not succeeded, never succeeded, in killing thousands of Americans in our own homeland. Osama had. Give a choice between having to let Saddam stay in power, and tracking down and defeating Osama Bin Laden, the choice should be obvious. We go for the guy who is actually leaving corpses in our streets.

Apparently, John Kerry, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had access to the same 9/11 Commission source documents that Berger did. In other words, there goes the “Berger took notes to prep the Kerry team” motive.

Martin, your point about motive is quite valid with regards to whether or not what Berger did was a crime or not. It shouldn’t matter why he did it if it can be proven that he did do it deliberately.

But if Berger didn’t have a motive to either (a) thwart the 9/11 Commission (a motive that defies reason insofar as the documents were almost certainly not the only copies in existence) or (b) to help Kerry (who had access to the documents), then we can only conclude that his motive, whatever it was, really has no bearing on either the 9/11 Commission’s findings or on the Kerry campaign.

In other words, despite the Republicans’ desperate and cynical attempts to make it so, this is not a political issue.

-Cf

CF-

How can you say this is not a political issue when on day one the story is leaked and on day two the Kerry Campaign announces that Berger is no longer working with them? Seems to me this is a political story with direct bearing on the Kerry campaign.

And this is all the more reason why it is very likely that the Kerry campaign leaked the story and not the Republicans. If Kerry thought Berger was a liability based on a pending arrest for a federal offense, then he should have moved quickly, before the convention, to cut him from the campaign. It took exactly 24 hours for him to do so.

There are politics here, and they are on the left. The GOP has some salt in their hands that they are throwing into the wound, but this issue belongs in the WB blue column. No amount of deflection or spin can change that.

Whoa, George. Why would the Kerry campaign essentially commit Seppuku? It’s hard enough to mount a campaign and do damage control on things like this when you didn’t do it to yourself. I just don’t see the logic of it.

Stephen:

It’s the lesser of two evils. What if this thing gets to federal charges for Mr. Berger? You would then have an indicted formal NSA as your foreign policy advisor on the campaign. As it is this story is getting buried by the missing Utah girl story, and will be in issue only on talk radio next week during the convention. Then, if it does blow up, Kerry can say he did the right thing by cutting Berger as soon as he learned of the investigation.

We saw a defense of Berger by Clinton, former Administration members, etc., but what we didn’t see was a defense of Berger by the Kerry campaign. Just the opposite, they cut him and walked away in less than 24 hours. I think Kerry is just taking the pain on his terms, and that makes perfect political sense if you think like a politician.

Remember Harrison Ford in Patriot Games? Make it a non-issue before it becomes one.

I know that scene. The gist of it was to have the president not deny the obvious fact of their friendship, and instead confirm it like they have nothing to hide.

There’s one problem with your theory, one that I think is fatal to it: They have to know first. Let’s they knew first. Why not ask him quietly to leave? Most people did not know he was affiliated with the Kerry campaign. Even I was unaware of that.

Under that scenario, the Kerry Campaign could have affirmed that he did indeed work for them for a little while, but upon learning of the offense, they let him go. A strong breeze will flow across the nation as people nod in agreement with that wise decision.

But under this scenario, they time the revelation right before the 9/11 reports and the convention, give the Republicans all kinds of political opportunities. Why? They already have the ability to no-fault divorce him.

The source had to be Administration. The plausible motive and opportunity for the leak was their’s alone.

Martin,

I see there is no need to respond to your assertions, as Stephen and Christopher have done quite an effective job already! However, I will respond to George’s point about how quickly Berger was drop from the Kerry campaign.

First, he was a minor player, almost an associative advisor of no significant stature in the campaign. However, I suspect that Kerry is keenly aware, that when it comes to the failings of an underling, and the resulting fallout, the political playing field is far from leveled.

If there actually was a proven devious motive for Berger’s screw up, the seriousness would never reach the incompetence of a Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith or Paul Wolfowitz. And, probably not equal stupid comments made by Education Sec. Rod Paige.

Yet, due to the Conservatives obvious ability to spin a ‘freeper’ rumor into one of a cable news network’s lead stories on the half-hour, this was a no brainer for the Kerry camp.

Stephen and Bert-

Time will tell if we get the real scoop on this story, but I see the real winner here as being Kerry and not Bush. Kerry has perfectly contained any long term damage Berger might have caused to the campaign by cutting him now. As for Sandy being only a bit player for Kerry, he still was an NSA and was probably in line for the same appointment if Kerry wins in November. Advisor on foreign affairs, with Kerry’s emphasis on that campaign issue, makes him more than insignificant.

As for Bush, the last thing you would want to do is waste ammo on the Kerry campaign before the convention. Rove would have saved this one for either during the convention or shortly thereafter to contain the convention bounce. You guys tend to give Rove all of the credit for any and all of the dirty politics, but if he is the “Son of Atwater” he wouldn’t have dropped this one now. Both of these guys have smart political machines, and both set their guys up to win. Kerry has won on this issue hands down which makes me think he framed the entire debate.

George, the word is that this leak came from law enforcement sources, most likely federal. Therefore, Repubican Command and Control. Are you going to claim Kerry has a mole there? Even then, why would such a mole knowingly risk the penalties the Bush administration has put upon leakers? Members of your administration indeed knew of the investigation, so why is it far fetched that things could fall at Bush’s doorstep? Just because a candidate wins a political battle doesn’t mean he or she started it. Turnabout is always a possibility in games of spin like this.

Plus, Bush’s people got themselves caught playing politics with a touchy subject that did not bear much monkey business. Berger immediately resigned his position with Kerry. Bush could stand to take a lesson from this, because he has a bad habit of holding onto personnel, even when they’ve stabbed him in the back with their misbehavior. When he fires people, its not for incompetence, its for disagreements on policy.