44 Comments

1. Katherine:

Non-story? His former NSA pilfers classified stuff, discards some of it, even if “inadvertentlyî (I am trying very hard to be charitable) and this is non-story? Is it just me, or does anybody else think that the world that Mr. Clinton inhabits is somewhere in a galaxy far, far away?

Jul 20, 2004 - 8:01 pm 2. richard mcenroe:

Picture me doing Dick Gephardt here…

“WHAT DID JOHN FORBES KERRY KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?”

Jul 20, 2004 - 8:03 pm 3. ras:

1. The missing reports are a list of air- and sea- port security holes. This is a terrorist dream come true, and it’s now out in the wild.

2. Berger’s lawyer says it took his client *a week* to return the other missing docs. Sounds more like he had to round them up from friends first, doesn’t it? How many other copies have been made?

3. Terrorists wouldn’t be looking to bribe a few folks in order to get their hands on these docs now, would they? (already? yes, of course!)

-

Jul 20, 2004 - 8:21 pm 4. Syl:

Sheesh. If Clinton knew, what other Democrats may have known? Who leaked? Why now? Supports the theory that they wanted to get it out of the way before the convention. If it was the Dems who leaked.

Otherwise…

An Instapundit reader pointed out that no matter WHEN the story was leaked, the Dems would accuse the leaker of attempting to obfuscate whatever the Bush-bashing meme of the week was. Doesn’t matter what it was, there’s always something.

Jul 20, 2004 - 8:30 pm 5. mrp:

From Susan Schmidt’s Washington Post article “Berger Quits as An Adviser To Kerry”:

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.

Five or six drafts of a ‘codeword’ classified report ‘inadvertently’ removed on two separate dates (9/2/2003 and 10/2/2003). Incredible.

Jul 20, 2004 - 8:31 pm 6. Charlie (Colorado):

More from the WP: “A source knowledgeable about the contents of the review said that it is classified “codeword” because it contains information about sensitive intelligence operations. The memo also contains sensitive fruits of wiretaps, intelligence sources said.”

Inconceivable.

Jul 20, 2004 - 8:42 pm 7. rgvdh:

“And if so, why did the presidential candidate continue to use the former National Security Adviser as an adviser to his campaign, knowing, at the least, that Berger was under investigation for a serious crime? That would be amazingly irresponsible for someone running for President.”

Remember, this *is* Kerry we’re talking about.

Jul 20, 2004 - 8:45 pm 8. chuck:

But doesn’t that just sound like Clinton: the soothing words, the assurance that its no big deal, the implication that it will all blow over. Meanwhile, the poor Dems are all running like h*ll before the storm breaks, leaving behind a sacrifice to assuage the gods. Ah, loyalty, where art thou loyalty.

Jul 20, 2004 - 8:47 pm 9. Katherine:

Please somebody tell me why so many people who should have f****ing better known better are so bent on dragging all of us into committing national suicide?

“The missing reports are a list of air- and sea- port security holes.”

Terrorists’ entering the US via sea has been my nightmare since the 9/11 ñ I could not look at the large container ships entering the Bay without slight worry.

Now the worry is not so slight any more. There are no words for people who knowingly endanger entire nation for some sort of political or personal gain.

On a second thought there is such a word, actually.

Jul 20, 2004 - 8:49 pm 10. PeterUK:

In a less enlightened country Berger would be finding himself in a cellar with some nasty rough men, claiming to be suffering from papyrophilia would not be the way out.

My view is that it was either importent to Berger when he first stole the documents or it is all a plelude to something coming up.Initially it could have be back covering but now it is insurance against some powerful people looking for a scapegoat.

Jul 20, 2004 - 9:00 pm 11. richard mcenroe:

You want to know why Berger was purloining that kind of information.

Debating points for Kerry: “Mr. Bush, you say you’ve made this country safer, waves paper yet here is a list of major threats to our national safety your administration didn’t even know about.”

Yes, I believe they are that superficial and that contemptuous of our intelligence. As James Lileks said, these are people who would rather lose the war than lose their committee chairmanships.

Jul 20, 2004 - 9:03 pm 12. Katherine:

From Drudge:

“We were all laughing about it,” Clinton said about the investigation into Sandy Berger for taking classified terrorism documents from the National Archives. “People who don’t know him might find it hard to believe. But … all of us who’ve been in his office have always found him buried beneath papers.”

Ha ha, this national security stuff is noting but fun and games, isnít it?

I never belonged to the Hate Clinton brigade ( I voted for the creep, for Godís sake!), but right now he is working very hard for me to join in. I truly wish I could sock him now.

Jul 20, 2004 - 9:25 pm 13. Barry Dauphin:

Will the NY Times or LA Times honestly cover this? Well trying to reason with the Berger and Wilson apologists is like trying to reason with a professional wrestler.

Jul 20, 2004 - 9:25 pm 14. Mike_Nargizian:

He stole the documents period.

Lying when says “borrowed them” - “being sloppy?”

Clinton is likely lying about what they were.

Don’t steal docs other copies exist of - why not use copies then?

WHAT WAS HE DOING AND WHY -

The Clintons, Berger and Co. were looking for damaging things to use in their bag of tricks for the coming months.

AND/OR

The Clintons, Berger and Co. were looking to hide certain things..? (these things wouldn’t hurt Kerry though if so so I’m inclined to more suspect the former) however, would have to be something really damaging to Clinton and Berger?

If they have a videotape of him stuffing it into his socks it would play on EVERY SINGLE show for months and would take over the media…

If I’m Bush and Co. I would be looking through the video camera footage of the library PRONTO.

Mike

Jul 20, 2004 - 9:26 pm 15. Michael B:

“Clinton tells the POST he has known about the federal probe of Berger’s actions for several months, calling the news a ‘non-story.’”

“But doesn’t that just sound like Clinton: the soothing words, the assurance that its no big deal, …”

After WTC ‘93, roughly one month into his tenure, Clinton’s proclamation to the nation was that we “should not over react.” That, delivered to a people that was evidencing no sign whatsoever of - over reacting - about an incident that, if it would have gone off as planned, would not only have toppled one or both towers but would also have killed multiplied times the numbers that were killed on 9/11.

Jul 20, 2004 - 9:50 pm 16. Rick Ballard:

Mike,

If there’s tape it’s in the hands of the JD and will not see light until a trial - and a trial is doubtful.

The timing of this “leak” is very curious. Maximum damage would occur if it immediately followed the convention - not preceded it. Let’s see, who benefits if Kerry loses by a little - but not by a lot. Hmmm… I’m getting a vision… yes, I see a junior senator from New York. What was her name again?

Jul 20, 2004 - 9:54 pm 17. lindenen:

After reading about this and the missing disks at Los Alamos, I have to wonder what the hell is wrong with the people in our government. Sloppy and unprofessional doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Maybe security guards will eventually have to frisk even the Secretary of State when he goes home for the evening because these people are so f*cking incompetent.

I’m confused as to whether Berger stole unreplaceable information that is now lost or just copies.

Jul 20, 2004 - 10:21 pm 18. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

stranger and stranger!

Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (SCI)? That’s as high security as it gets. The “codewords” defining the clearances are themselves classified.

What the hell was this idiot doing? Where is the missing information? Destroyed? Uh huh.

Wiretaps? That gives away targets. It’s important to keep secret.

Perhaps a few more people should have read Gary Aldrich’s book about the Clinton Administration and their blatant disregard for security rules.

This guy needs to go to jail. But first he needs to rat out anyone else who was involved, and why he did this. The current excuses are so pathetic as to be intelligent.

The most likely reason he took this information was for political purposes. Was it a plot? Who else knew? It’s time for a Democrat John Dean to appear, or a deep throat.

Jul 20, 2004 - 10:26 pm 19. WichitaBoy:

Only the most ardent True Believers are going to buy the “accident” theory. This stinks to high heaven and everybody knows it.

There are two main questions: 1) why did Berger do it? and 2) who leaked and why?

I don’t see any great advantage to the Republicans to leak right now, but it’s certainly plausible that they did. That Kerry leaked to get Berger out of the way is plausible. That the Clinton cadre leaked is plausible. That some poor schnook who saw it happen and got fed up with the hypocrisy leaked is plausible, too. But the deeper question is: why on earth was Berger doing it? To help Kerry? How could it? To cover his derriere? Very possible. To cover Clinton’s derriere? Also very possible. To give something to the press? Maybe, but what?

Yes, Katherine, I see you’re starting to “get” Clinton. Somehow, for some reason, people around him will fall on their sword for him, go to jail for him. Kill Republicans for him. He inspires that kind of loyalty. That kind of loyalty and for what purpose? So that he has the right to have a blow-job whenever and whereever and with whomever. I don’t begrudge him his blow-jobs. I don’t begrudge him his loyal people. But the ability to command that intensity of loyalty for the sake of such trivial tawdriness is truly frightening. It means that there are no checks on him. It means that he can get away with whatever he wants to get away with. Christopher Hitchens says he got away with rape. We don’t know. We do know that Clinton lies and smiles about it, breaks the law and smiles about it, endagers the country and has a good laugh. The Clinton cadre never understood the seriousness of the office. Sometimes I wonder whether any of them have ever grown up at all.

Jul 20, 2004 - 10:48 pm 20. Fresh Air:

I think the pants/socks thing is a bit of a red herring. It appears from the WaPo story and other accounts that Berger stuffed his notes into his pants and jacket pockets, not the documents. The documents, however, were 12-15 pages in length and were evidently slipped out in his leather portfolio.

Okay, how many of you carry such a piece of a luggage? I do, and I daresay its tare weight probably doesn’t exceed eight ounces. One would know with certainty whether one had any, ahem, extra pieces of paper in there.

So he definitely meant to remove the documents, which were apparently consecutive drafts of the After-Action Report on the Millenium Plot written by none other than…Dick Clarke.

Note also in the WaPo story that Berger was reviewing the documents on behalf of Bill Clinton. Whose butt was at risk from these documents? If I read the situation correctly, there is only one butt big enough for Sandy to risk his over: The Big He himself!

Chapter Two tomorrow: The Pants Thicken. Roger, this mystery stuff is kind of fun.

Jul 20, 2004 - 10:57 pm 21. Katherine:

I get your point, WichitaBoy. Since I found out that heís had Ms Lewinsky service him while discussing points of national security on the phone and then brazenly lied about it, I felt not hatred, but contempt for the man. This feeling was growing steadily as more shit about him came to light ñ we all know what followed. But I always thought him less dangerous than Gore, who revealed himself in his presidential campaign as a central-planner par excellence.

Well, I was wrong about Clinton. Now I know that he is nothing but narcissistic egomaniac corrupted by power - absolutely. And this bastard dares to laugh off violations of national security! Sometimes there is that one straw that breaks a camelís back.

Incidentally I donít believe that people are falling on their swords out of loyalty for Clinton. I suspect that there is somewhere a special file on everybody who ever was a FOB or WFB (worked for Bill).

Jul 20, 2004 - 11:14 pm 22. HA:

I just saw Berger denying the allegation:

“I did not have sexual relations with those documents…I never told anybody a lie, not a single time. Never.”

Works for me.

Jul 21, 2004 - 3:10 am 23. unkraut:

Is anyone asking the obvious dog-in-the-night question: who was watching the supersecret archives while Mr. Berger was rifling the files? Wasn’t someone able to ask “Um, sir, why are you stuffing some of the country’s most secret documents down your trousers?”

Is the archive room manned by Clinton loyalists? Kerry campaign officials? Bureaucrats with axes to grind?

Jul 21, 2004 - 3:56 am 24. Sissy Willis:

We knew something was up when they started trotting out the old “It depends upon what your definition of is, is” Zippergate apologists like Lanny Davis and Chris Lehane on the cable news shows yesterday.

It depends upon what your definition of a non-story is

Jul 21, 2004 - 5:24 am 25. Oscar:

Glenn Reynolds posted a comment from a lawyer about the legal status of the whole thing. His comment about Clinton’s joking was that this was a defense against one part of the statutes in question. I have asked Glenn if that doesn’t mean that since

1. CLinton knew Berger was a ditz who always lost stuff

2. Clinton allowed Berger continued access to highly classified materials

that maybe CLINTON is the culpable one. He gets a lot of mail so any lawyers knowlegable on the relevant laws can step in here.

This Clinton joking thing makes me wonder if he has some sort of weird bi-polar problem: there was his very statesman like speech in Europe in Jan/Feb that certainly was supportive of the US vs the rest of the World, and then his more recent defense of Blair to the British press, and now this “did I tell you the one about how Sandy Berger lost some nuclear plans on a visit to Iran a few years ago?” yucking it up.

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:06 am 26. Charlie (Colorado):

Unkraut, as someone else pointed out (I’d cite them if I remembered who I’m stealing this insight from) the National Archives staff are librarians, not Marines. They’re unlikely to grab an ex National Security Advisor and wrestle him to the ground.

(Why Marines? Because if he’d have tried this at NSA, the Marine guards would have wrestled him to the ground. If he was lucky.)

What they did do was plant some papers with hidden marks so they could prove the papers were walking out with Berger, and call the FBI.

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:48 am 27. unkraut:

Charlie (Colorado), thanks for the information. But now I wonder why AREN’T there some marines guarding secret information?

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:59 am 28. Lauratealeaf:

I am wondering if Sandy Berger is the only Clinton administration official under investigation? Could there have been others who purloined clasified documents and hid them inside their Wonder Bras? Or under their toupees?

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:27 am 29. Knucklehead:

Fresh Air,

Just pondering it all but your explanation of the logistics of the “removal” seem about right to me. I only know what the web is telling me about how this stuff is handled. I did, once upon a time, have a Top Secret clearance but those are not necessarily a big deal. It means you have some access to some stuff that the enemy shouldn’t see and you should handle it according to some pretty rigorous rules and that somebody is going to check now and again that you’ve adhered to the rules. Nothing I had any access to was earth shaking in any way (really, just pretty ordinary weapons) but even a knucklehead like me managed to get a (apparently rare) 100% compliance with the rules score. Now, I can say that the rules can be complied with, to some extent, by, ummm… the use of, ummm… retroactive carefullness - how’s that. And the apparent rarity of perfect compliance suggests that imperfect compliance does not get many people hauled before a firing squad. Nonetheless the rules are known and are not too onerous to be complied with to acceptable levels.

Berger clearly knew what he was doing. He went through a ton of documents, selected the few ounces he was looking for, and put those in his leather portfolio. If he were stopped and somebody demanded to look into the portfolio he could easily play absent minded professor and just hand them over.

This would not have been the end of the world since he still had his NOTES. If I’m not mistaken his supporters have pointed out that he was Mr. Note Taker. But he knew the system and he knew that if he kept the notes in the portfolio with the papers and the papers were discovered the notes would likely be discovered also. If they were discovered they would be subject to review and classification. So he kept them seperate and put them in pockets, pants, socks, whatever. He hid them about his person because he was probably petty darned certain that nobody was going to pat down a former NSA working on behalf of a former President.

Burger is clearly guilty of far more than “sloppiness” - the Slopiness Dog just flat-out don’t hunt.

The motives behind this are still up in the air, of course. Just a wild ass guess, but its probably some combination of covering his arse and Bubba’s and making some points with a potential new Sugar Daddy all mixed in with “nothing matters but getting the Republicans our of the White House”. A big, noxious stew of motives.

Maybe it was just “the future book deal”, but that doesn’t wash with me. Wouldn’t the notes have sufficed for that? Is a former NSA expected to produce CSI codeword protected source documents in the books they write? I sure hope not and I sure doubt it.

The Clinton administration clearly played fast an loose with records. They had no interest in playing by any rules but their own. I suppose that’s somewhat true of all politicians and “power structures”, but that administration took it to an art form. What it says about them I’m not sure - bad at best, sickening along most of the middling ground, nearly treasonous at the extreme.

What it says about their supporters is somewhat more interesting in the current environment. I suppose that if one really believes that there is no real threat in the world then things like CSI seem silly. And if one truly believes there is a big threat in the world and that it is the USA, then any action up to and including treason is justified. Or maybe they do think it is all really just a big game and the only thing that matters is winning and the prize is political power - the “they’d rather lose the war if that’s what it takes to keep the chairmanships” analysis.

Whatever the case, however, these people need to be beaten back and sent packing. We cannot afford them at this point in time. In the best of times tolerating them is a luxury and this isn’t the best of times.

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:28 am 30. Macker:

“Now there is a third possibility… that Kerry knew and for reasons unknown was powerless to act. But I don’t want to go there except maybe in a novel.”

So what the heck are you waiting for Roger? Get Moses Wine to work on it!

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:37 am 31. jerry:

John:

Technical point: The initials, known as trigraphs or digraphs, of SCI material are unclassified. The actual code words remain classified. However, they are widely known throughout the defense interest community. They were also revealed to the USSR by to TRW employees in 1980, i.e., “The Falcon and the Snowman”. So the code words are protected from the American public but not from our Cold War adversaries.

On the specific issue. I still remain skeptical about any damage done by Berger. I do not believe that he was out peddling secrets to Al Qaeda. Its beginning to look like a protect Clinton’s legacy operation. Berger could have been providing info to Kerry but as long as it didn’t go beyond the Senator there would have been no disclosure problem. Members of Congress are cleared to all but a handful of black programs.

In general I do not trust early reports in the press, even reports coming out from outlets that share my Republican/Conservative biases. You have to remember that most people in the news business are no-nothings regardless of where they stand politically

Jul 21, 2004 - 8:14 am 32. Kevin P:

Jerry;

Thank you for your information. I admit I have been having some partisan fun with this story but I do feel there are some serious issues with this story. Your insight has been valuable to get past some of the hyperbole.But I think Bergers excuse that he just made a procedural error is weak. What are the purposes of the procedure. To keep our national secrets which in the long run keep people from getting killed. Why are so many laptops missing from Los Alamos? Because workers adopt the Berger method and decide that the procedures are a burden and breaking the rules is no big deal.You brought up “The Falcon and the Snowman” and I think that is a perfect example of the Berger ethos.Most of the employees there had no nefarious purposes but one did. And the damage was huge.Why is the CIA so screwed up? There are lots of reasons but one of them is lax security procedures.Whether or not Berger should be prosecuted would depend on what was in the files he took out of the secure room, whether or not he “lost” them or he gave them to other people on purpose.I do think we need to know these answers and if Berger doesn’t come clean with the facts , then I think the JD needs to go after him, not to put him in jail but to get him to talk.I think the proper punishment would be the removal of his access to secret info but only if he comes clean.As long as some who has such a cavalier attitude to security no longer works in the government that would be enough for me. So far his answers make no sense at all.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:03 am 33. chuck:

Kevin P:

We don’t *know* what Berger did with the papers precisely because he took them out of a controlled environment. I think this makes the point that the procedures exist for a reason and that no one should violate them. Jerry’s comment that Berger probably did nothing to hurt national security is probably true. But we don’t know. That’s the point. By the by, I don’t trust first reports either, so we will just have to wait and see.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:33 am 34. PeterUK:

It is amusing that the former National Security Adviser cannot burgle without getting caught and the candidate who claims that he will run the WOT better does not know that his advisor is a bungling burglar.

It is very alarming that nobody seems to has informed Kerry,does no one have any loyalty to the man?

Jul 21, 2004 - 10:56 am 35. WichitaBoy:

PeterUK

Nobody cares for Kerry. If they did, they would have bumper stickers which read “Vote for Kerry” rather than “Somebody Else for President”. It’s Bush who’s the cynosure of all eyes here. Kerry’s baseline strategy is therefore to fade into the background as much as possible. Kerry is truly one of the worst candidates the Democrats have yet to disgorge but the focus is all on Bush-hatred, which is rampant throughout the country.

Jul 21, 2004 - 12:47 pm 36. Charlie (Colorado):

Jerry, I’m going to quibble with you a little. You are, of course, right that the classification digraphs (let’s call them that generically, even though they actually run from one to four letters) are not themselves classified. The set of all codewords, as codewords, aren’t classified either — there’s something between 40 and 60 thousand of them, and as I explained in another thread, they’re assigned randomly. (There’s literally a phone number you can call to get assigned a new codeword, or a new project code name.)

It’s the association of a code word with a topic that makes something super-secret — as with the use of CARDINAL in Tom Clancy’s book Cardinal of the Kremlin. The use of “cardinal” was fine — the association of CARDINAL with a suborned member of the Politburo was something else.

Some of these code words are, comparatively, about as exclusive as a rainstorm, and I’ve certainly had the unpleasant surprise of seeing something mentioned in Newsweek by codeword. Other codewords are extremely closely held, with documents under that classification being one of, say, three copies and the association of codeword and topic being exceedingly confidential.

Jul 21, 2004 - 4:53 pm 37. exguru:

How many motives COULD Berger have?

1. To aid the enemy and make money. (That one’s absurd).

2. To help Kerry beat Bush (Maybe).

3. To expunge from the historical record material unflattering, in the light of 9-11, to Clinton and himself. (Unquestionably).

4. A combination of #3 and #4 (Maybe).

My view is #3 would be more important to Berger and his handler than abetting Kerry. Curious that the first call from the National Archives went to Bruce Lindsay, isn’t it?

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:52 pm 38. doc:

Exguru,

How can the motives be a combination of #3 and #4 when #4 is: “A combination of #3 and #4.”

It is exactly this kind of sloppiness that has led this country into grave danger.

Jul 22, 2004 - 4:10 am 39. thibaud:

So Bill knew Berger was under investigation but Kerry did not?

Verrrry interesting. Keeping Kerry in the dark allows Berger to take the hit for Clinton’s NSA failings, and any fallout attaches not to Bill but to Kerry. Kerry’s national security credentials are diminished, leaving standing only three nationally-prominent national security Democrats: Biden, Lieberman, and the junior senator from New York. Biden’s not a candidate; Lieberman’s a failed candidate. Edwards has n o standing to speak of on natl security. Only Hillary could reasonably cover the Dems’ flank on national security if Kerry were to suddenly be viewed as, shall we say, not having a clue (see http://hughhewitt.com/#postid693) about Berger’s grave offense.

Cherchez La Hillary.

Jul 22, 2004 - 7:49 am 40. thibaud:

What’s Dick Morris got to say about the Clintons’ role in this?

Jul 22, 2004 - 7:50 am 41. Catherine:

Good catch, Roger!

I read the same report, and didn’t make the connection—–yikes.

I’ve only skimmed the comments (MUST get to work) so I apologize if this is a repeat. Yesterday’s WSJ had the best explanation I’ve seen of what’s happened (don’t know if the link is subscription only):

Written by Richard Clarke for the NSC, the key document [taken by Mr. Berger] was called the Millennium After-Action Review because it dealt with al Qaeda attacks timed for the eve of the Millennium celebrations. In his own 9/11 testimony, Mr. Berger described these al Qaeda plans as “the most serious threat spike of our time in government.” He went on to say that they provoked “sustained attention and rigorous actions” from the Administration that ended up saving lives.

But Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has the advantage of having read the document in question, had a different take. In his own 9/11 testimony in April, Mr. Ashcroft recommended that the Commission “study carefully” the after-action memo. He described it as laying out vulnerabilities and calling for aggressive remedies of the type he and the Bush Administration have been criticized for. Mr. Ashcroft further noted that when he took office, this “highly classified review” was “not among” the items he was briefed on during the transition.

Maybe that is because of the potential for embarrassment at the mentality the memo reveals. Mr. Ashcroft testified that the Justice Department’s “surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses.” The most glaring, of course, were the restrictions on the sharing of critical information between intelligence and law enforcement — even within the FBI itself. This was the infamous “wall of separation” that Clinton Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick instructed the FBI director should “go beyond what is legally required.”

Berger on the ‘Wall’

There are two things going on here. The first is obvious: protecting the Clinton administration from accusations of having allowed the threat from Al Qaeda to grow.

But I think the second is more interesting at this point: protecting the Dems’ ability to demonize John Ashcroft. Assuming the memo did indeed recommend taking the steps Ashcroft has taken–and given that it was written by Clarke I’m sure it did–that cuts a great big patch of ground out from underneath Kerry?s attacks.

Years ago a fundraising consultant told me something I’ve never forgotten:

Sometimes it’s better just to go ahead and do what you need to do, and apologize later.

That’s what this looks like to me.

off-topic

I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I’m now full-throttle in the ?Math Wars, so I wanted to share this link for those of you who are also dealing with this issue.

Yes, the Education President

The more I learn about the No Child Left Behind Act, the more committed I am to President Bush.

NCLB requires that schools use empirically-validated techniques to teach their students.

More importantly, NCLB requires that failing schools either improve, or allow & enable their students to leave.

Finally NCLB requires that schools keep data on the physical safety of their children.

Failing urban schools are prisons for minority children:

14 percent of District high school boys don’t go to school because they feel unsafe either in class or on their way to or from school — and that’s what the survey showed — our city is in a class by itself. And . . . 14 percent of District high school girls say they were physically forced to have sexual intercourse — which ties them for the lead with girls in Philadelphia –

‘Safety and Happiness’ for D.C. Kids

Minority children are legally required to attend these schools. They can’t stay home; staying home is not a legal option unless they have parents who can qualify to homeschool them.

Think about it.

We require these children to attend schools where they are not physically safe.

That is a prison.

When you read the literature, it’s horrifying. You can see black children’s math scores rising steadily in the 1980s, under Reagan; then you see the scores fall back down in the 1990s, under Clinton.

This is no spurious correlation. Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institute directly attributes black children’s loss of gains to the introduction of “fuzzy math” (also called “constructivist math” or “standards math”), which was spearheaded by Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Education in defiance of professional mathematicians and parents.

Computation Skills, Calculators, and Achievement Gaps: An Analysis of NAEP Items

Why is this loss important? Check this out:

Basic skills predict adult earnings. In recent years, a growing body of research has documented that the skills and knowledge students learn in school is correlated with success later in life. In their landmark study showing the impact of basic skills on adult earnings, Richard Murnane and Frank Levy conclude, “mastery of skills taught in American schools no later than the eighth grade is an increasingly important determinant of subsequent wages.”

Trends in Math Achievement: The Importance of Basic Skills

Here is Rod Paige:

Education is truly the civil-rights issue of the 21st century.

Naked Partisans

He’s right.

I’m having my own set of issues with my children’s schools.

But if I were a black mother living in Washington D.C. I couldn’t be confident that my child would get through the school day without being raped or worse.

Education is a civil rights issue, and NCLB is civil rights legislation.

I’m sorry to get so far off topic, but I’ve had a few emails from commenters here who’ve spent years dealing with all of this.

Moreover, I think it would be good for the public to realize that President Bush is not just a war president.

He is an education president.

And he is a civil rights president.

Jul 22, 2004 - 8:51 am 42. Catherine:

WichitaBoy

Sorry to report, but I am now seeing “Vote Kerry” signs everywhere.

Check out the Richard Avedon photo of Kerry in this week’s issue of NEW YORKER.

He looks great.

I need Richard Avedon to take my picture right away.

Jul 22, 2004 - 8:53 am 43. megapotamus:

Haven’t read the comments in depth so this may be a re-tread but there is a very plausible fourth expalanation for Clinton’s statement… He’s lying. Why? one might ask. This is part of the established Clinton media strategy. No matter what crime or misdeed is reported, the spin is “Oh we already knew about that, it’s not news so why is it being hyped?” a classical redirection in the Byzantine mode. What with Lanny Davis, Chris Lehane and any number of other figures from the Bad Old Days, including the Slickmeister himself, we can forgive the Clintonites for forgetting that there was an election some time ago and the resources of the government are no longer at their disposal to coneal their many, egregious and repeated betrayals of this nation. What a raft of scum.

Jul 22, 2004 - 9:05 am 44. doc:

Again, I have to say that Catherine’s point is very stiring.

The fact that girls between the ages of 14-17 have admitted to being raped is very troubling.

And what do they all have in common? They go to school.

Clearly, the education system is somehow to blame. My daugher’s school, Abu Graib Elementary, will receive much greater scrutiny from me.

But aren’t there other things these girls have in common that might explain the spike in rapes? Using Catherine’s data, the spike in rapes during the 1990s seems suspiciously parallel to the rise of the popular television series, Seinfeld.

Is it such a stretch to ask if the Jews could somehow be in on this? Think about it.

Jul 22, 2004 - 2:58 pm

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