61 Comments

1. Katherine:

What else anybody would expect them to say?

If they happen to be presented with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary we will learn that the timing or source of the evidence is suspect and thus it should be dismissed.

Jul 20, 2004 - 11:22 pm 2. Greg D:

Sorry, but those two statements are either contradictory, or a damning indictment of the Kerry Campaign.

What kind of campaign would NOT fire someone for blindsiding them with something like this?

Jul 21, 2004 - 1:37 am 3. David Thomson:

ÔøΩKerry released a statement saying: ÔøΩSandy Berger is my friend, and he has tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction. I respect his decision to step aside as an adviser to the campaign until this matter is resolved objectively and fairly.ÔøΩ”

My imagination is getting the better of me. This is probably what John Kerry really wanted to say:

“Sandy Berger is a jerk, and he has tirelessly served Bill Clinton, my unofficial political enemy, with his butt kissing. The idiot should have long ago decided to step aside as an adviser to the campaign until my friends within the liberal media can slant the story to lessen the damage.”

There is very good possibility that we will look back at this particular incident as the tipping point that destroyed John KerryÔøΩ’s campaign. Sandy Berger has substantially harmed the latterÔøΩ’s ability to project an image of competence in national security. Moreover, BergerÔøΩ’s behavior turns him into easy cannon fodder for Dave Letterman and Jay Leno. This alone is an unpardonable offense. Berger allegedly put top secret documents down his pants and socks? Did Karl Rove write this comic routine? The very idea is hysterically funny. If only John Belushi were still alive. They say that truth is often stranger than fiction. Would Roger Simon have ever thought of a fictional character resembling the unintentionally goofy Berger?

Jul 21, 2004 - 2:11 am 4. Joe:

One or two things still puzzle about this whole business. These days, Borders and Barnes & Noble both hide little plastic-strip things in their wares that will trigger an alarm if you walk through the doors (and those devices in front of the doors) without having paid first, and having had the checkout clerk run your purchase over yet another device that disables the plastic strip thingy. I don’t know if such a device is/was in use at the 9/11 repository, but if it was, I hardly see how Berger could have been able to smuggle one document through, let alone multiple documents. (And that particular precaution, if in use, would have been on top of other procedures that I’m well familiar with from nearly a decade of handling classified documents between 1988-1995, such as requiring all users to sign for documents, documents with discrete serial numbers and copy numbers, special, brightly colored covers for each document according to its exact classification, barcodes to provide an additional digital level of tracking, etc. Users would also have been required to store all classified documents, notes, etc. in their safes at the end of the working day. Documents relating to nuclear weapons (Secret/Restricted Data and Secret/Formerly Restricted Data) were kept in a separate room, and Top Secret and above documents were kept on a different floor, in a special vault area to which only TS-cleared personnel had access. Also, did Berger even still have a valid clearance? My own clearance expired one year after I left that job.

Instapundit has a good rundown of the specific law applying to this case. The thinking appears to be that what’s going around in the news right now – the “inadvertency” claims, Clinton laughing about how Berger was always losing things – really amounts to building a legal defense to the effect that Berger was so careless with his own property that it’s plausible that he could be careless with somebody else’s property. Not much of a defense, but the alternatives under these circumstances are either to look idiotic or untrustworthy.

Jul 21, 2004 - 2:20 am 5. Knucklehead:

I watched some of the MSM news programs to see what the general spin on this would be.

It looks to me that the the Kerry/Dem camp’s short term take is “Hey, its not a big deal, no important story here, just a good making a simple mistake, but if you want to get upset about something, the real story is the mean-spirited and devious Republicans and the timing of this and how upset they are pretending to be over a non-story. Look how they are trying to politicize this!”

I’m not convinced this will have a large impact on the Kerry campaign but it is surely another several bricks on the load – a ponderous load already. The world situation really does limit Kerry’s freedom of movement, he shows know signs of being particularly astute or agile, and he’s chosen to drag a giant baggage cart around with him. Just one person’s opinion but the Kerry campaign seems downright leaden to me. I suppose they’ve been hoping things would fall apart for the president but they seem unable to move well even when things are not going well for the president or badly for themselves.

I don’t know how campaigns work or have any good way to guage the public, but at this moment what I see at as the teams come out of the locker rooms to start the second half is one team that should be darned glad they’ve somehow kept the game from getting completely away and cannot figure out what will work and what won’t (the game plan is in tatters) and another team all set to execute phase two of a game plan they’ve been executing and building upon. Just thoughts, sorry for the sports analogy. I just look at the “overall scene” in front of me and try to get a feel for the game when I can’t understand or see what’s on all the clipboards and wrist cheatsheets.

If I were a betting man I’d be listening to Samuel and placing some bets on the 53-57% range for the president come election day. Just observaton from an admittedly biased observer looking at the game from the cheap seats.

Jul 21, 2004 - 5:32 am 6. Clio:

Maybe it’s just me, but I was infuriated by Bill Clinton’s attempt to laugh this all off as “crazy” Sandy’s typical antics. What’s with the Beaver, Wally? Oh, don’t mind him, Eddie, his desk is always a frightful mess!

Clinton was starting to benefit from a bit of nostalgia (blame in on VH1) for the 90s, a whole lot of amnesia, and widespread doubts about both parties’ presidential tickets. I was going a little soft for the big guy myself, til I clicked on Drudge last night.

Well, no more. If he wants to slice off a little piece of his shopworn credibility on behalf of his loyal consigliere (oh, sorry, only Republican toffs have those, right?) that leaves both of them pretty friggin’ naked in my eyes. Saggy, pale and naked. I may need to skip breakfast.

Jul 21, 2004 - 5:46 am 7. JB:

Knucklehead,

The Kerry campaign is in big trouble.

The above-linked numbers, no Edwards bounce and now this — which, even if buried, gives potential ad ammunition to Bush.

Jul 21, 2004 - 5:58 am 8. Oscar:

I think this could have a Tea Pot Dome sort of ending where some poor schlub at the documents containment area is found guilty of letting Sandy Berger walk out with documents Berger is found innocent of taking.

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:11 am 9. David Thomson:

Sandy Berger wants us to believe that he committed an honest mistake. OK, letís be nice to him and take our Kerry supporter at his word. This generous interpretation still shows Berger to be embarrassingly careless about security issues. Bill Clinton reportedly indulged in sex talk with Monica Lewinsky over an open telephone line. A nonchalant attitude seem prevalent in these matters. Isnít this par for the course for todayís Democrats?

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:27 am 10. ricpic:

From Byron York’s column at nationalreview.com concerning l’affaire Berger:

“…although Berger said he reviewed thousands of pages, he apparently homed in on a single document: the so-called ‘after action report’ on the Clinton administration’s handling of the millenium plot of 1999/2000. Berger is said to have taken multiple copies of the same paper. He is also said to have taken these copies on at least two different days. There have been no reports that he took any other documents, which suggests that his choice of paper was quite specific and not the result of simple carelessness.”

Feeling the heat, Bill and Company?

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:27 am 11. Fresh Air:

Ricpic–

York has connected the dots very well. Either Berger was profoundly careless and stupid, or he was trying to protect Bill Clinton’s, er, legacy.

(1) Could the after-action report possibly have been so damning he would have tried to round up all copies of it?

However:

(2) Why would he persist in this effort after one (or possibly two) lost copies of his were replaced? (In other words, Berger would then have known he wasn’t dealing with originals, but copies.)

This story has not burned itself out yet, folks.

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:44 am 12. Tano:

Actually, I think we are on the last legs of this story. A 2 day silly-season wonder. Its been a fun 24 hours though, hasnt it? Y’all manage to spin yourselves into believing that this was IT – the magic key to political utopia. At least we have firmly established one thing. The good ol’ republicans of the nineties are still around, frothing at the mouth, waiting to pounce. All the faux-outrage of the past few years, about how the ‘loony left’ treats poor Mr. Bush and Cheney etc. is revealed to be just that – a lot of phony posturing. The tiniest drop of blood in the water, and look out – clamp on those beanies and take the children inside.

Just consider it a little spring training for the next eight years.

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:53 am 13. Charlie (Colorado):

Joe, those little tags are pretty bulky by comparison to a single sheet of paper, and real easy to knock off.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the printed RFID tags used in the future, and I suspect this might push that forward, but I don’t think the bookstore magnetic tags would be practical.

(Now, I’ll say that I haven’t had codeword-access in years, so I’m probably not up to date on how the documents are really managed.)

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:55 am 14. Charlie (Colorado):

Actually, I think we are on the last legs of this story. A 2 day silly-season wonder. Its been a fun 24 hours though, hasnt it?

Tano, I’m afriad you might be right — it looks more and more like this might have been a Lanny Davis leak to get the story out when the convention could overwhelm it in the press.

But if you really think this isn’t a serious issue — should be a serious issue no matter what your politics — it can only be because you either don’t realize just how sensitive codeword material of that sort is, or because you think the political issues are more important.

Which is to say you’re either a fool or an ass.

Jul 21, 2004 - 6:58 am 15. Charlie (Colorado):

Actually, I’d like to rethink that, and revive the fine old English word “blackguard”:

3. A person of stained or low character, esp. one who uses scurrilous language, or treats others with foul abuse; a scoundrel; a rough.

A man whose manners and sentiments are decidedly

below those of his class deserves to be called a

blackguard. –Macaulay.

If you really think this isn’t a serious issue — should be a serious issue no matter what your politics — it can only be because you either don’t realize just how sensitive codeword material of that sort is, or because you think the political issues are more important.

Which is to say you’re either a fool or blackguard.

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:05 am 16. mrp:

From the Susan Schmidt piece:

The National Archives has tight restrictions on the viewing of presidential materials, particularly classified documents, and normally does not allow researchers to bring portfolios or anything else with them. It is not clear why Berger was not held to those rules. (emphasis added)

Some folks at the National Archives, no doubt, will also be under scrutiny.

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:21 am 17. Clio:

Charlie,

Hear, hear! I’m all for reviving antique insults, and who better to use them on than Tano. However, it seems only fair to include a guide to pronunciation for such borrowings. So, lest Tano spend the greater part of the day considering himself a black-guard, let me assure him that he is really a blag’gard (emph. on first syllable). Have a nice day, Tano (but then, it always is in Fantasyland!).

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:25 am 18. Knucklehead:

mrp,

Yeah, some Little Dog head or heads will roll before this whole thing plays out. Somebody is probably already on “administrative leave” or polishing Lincoln’s shoes down at the memorial during the graveyard shift.

The laxness with secure documents problem seems nearly epidemic right now. Now there’s the sort of problem that can be solved “top down”, so I sure hope leadership in all three branches, but especially the executive branch, is kicking some tail and straightening some spines. It takes time for top down to work, but, Mr. President, you need to send some serious people out to rattle some cages farther downstream than they’ve been rattled so far.

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:40 am 19. richard mcenroe:

Poor John Kerry. What an impeccable judge of character. What a man of decisive action. Still paying for Joe Wilson’s site. Wouldn’t dream of asking Berger to quit.

And as for Clinton, this is man who left the officer with the nuclear football stranded in a hotel while the rest of his road trip took off to the airport once. Certainly just the man to judge the seriousness of a security breach.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:42 am 20. richard mcenroe:

Mr. Berger: if you are caught, the candidate will deny all knowledge of your existence… Mission Hypocritical.

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:44 am 21. Charlie (Colorado):

Clio — Just right. I learned the word from a Brit (applied to our mutual employer at the time) so didn’t think about the pronunciation issue.

I wonder if we shouldn’t adopt “blaggard” as the American spelling, along the same lines as dropping random ‘u’s and ‘y’s?

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:54 am 22. richard mcenroe:

BTW, it now appears Berger took ALL the copies of at least one document concerning the Millenium Plot. You know, accidentally.

Blackguard, scrub, poltroon, Democrat… it’s all the same crowd…

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:57 am 23. RogerA:

The conspiracy theory part of my brain has been trying to connect these dots: Why did the National Archives call Clinton’s lawyer; why have Lehane, Davis, and Lockhart surfaced; This whole affair looks more like some exercise the old Clinton staffers are more interested in than John Kerry–If that’s so why? Leaking it now lets the convention doings overcome the story? If the Clintonistas really want Hillary to run 2008, why not float something that might hurt the Kerry campaign? Supporting Berger gives the Clintonistas some capital with the democratic base—looks to me like the Clintonistas have a win-win going here. Damn–I have GOT to stop drinking ouzo after dinner!

Jul 21, 2004 - 7:59 am 24. flenser:

Tano;

“All the faux-outrage of the past few years, about how the ‘loony left’ treats poor Mr. Bush and Cheney etc. is revealed to be just that – a lot of phony posturing.”

Well, there are a couple of differences. The loony-left critique of Bush and Cheney is always based on smoke and mirrors. Actually, that’s giving them too much credit. Make that based on hypothetical smoke and conjectured mirrors.

By way of contrast, Berger has been caught breaking the law. We have a specific crime that has been committed and a known person who has committed it, and he is tied to the John Kerry campaign.

Jul 21, 2004 - 8:10 am 25. chuck:

Well, the story was going to come out at some point, so maybe someone did give it a push. I don’t think it will just blow over in two days though, as more details are still dribbling out. The big question is, why those documents? Especially if five (or six) were taken. In any case, it sure sticks in my mind, and it’s not like a modern convention is such a big deal that it will push everything else off the news. I mean, are *you* waiting with baited breath to hear the two Johns nominated? Course, this is not a good forum in which to catch a statistically fair sample, but I sure don’t hear anyone at work talking about the upcoming events either. And let’s remember that it’s the swing voters in the swing states who are going to decide this election. Every little bit counts. Oh, and the word ‘inadvertent’ is just too good to die. I can see a whole string of jokes based on this.

Jul 21, 2004 - 8:19 am 26. mrp:

For your enjoyment …

Berger Secrecy Report memo

Jul 21, 2004 - 8:21 am 27. Eric Deamer:

Instapundit and National Review Online are both reporting that the overhwhelming majority of the e-mail they’re getting from people who claim that they are or have been in positions where they work with classified documents is scandalized by this. As in, almost everyone with this background think this is a big deal, contra jerry’s take on it from earlier.

Jul 21, 2004 - 8:36 am 28. Eric Deamer:

Jonah Goldberg

I still haven’t gotten a single email from someone who regularly deals with classified info who isn’t scandalized by this. Meanwhile I get a half-dozen of these every hour or so:

And then an outraged e-mail from someone who works as an historian for a government agency follows.

Jul 21, 2004 - 8:52 am 29. Clio:

Eric is right. My husband–who first supported the war and has since moved to the “Bush lied, people died” side (oh dear)–used to work at State and is implacable in his desire to see Berger do jail time.

In related matters, my little brain is working feverishly to understand why a fairly smart guy would commit professional suicide thus (for, like other members of former inner circles, his milking of contacts for lucre will end unless he renews them periodically, hence the need to get in good with the newbie admin). I’m now wondering if covering for one’s boss/one’s party/etc. is worth ALL this pain. Conspiracy theorists of the world, say it with me now: could he be in the pay of some big CLIENT (or, client-state), say, the SAUDIS?

Go ahead, call me crazy. Worth pondering.

Jul 21, 2004 - 8:54 am 30. Tano:

OK

Clio, you’re crazy.

The real question is: where was Sandy Berger on the night Vince Foster died?

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:08 am 31. penwil:

Just a semi-educated guess based on having worked both in the media and PR business for a number of years. . . but I’d put my money on this coming from the Republicans rather than the Dems. First, there’s the timing. If you want to get bad news out and get it over with it, you leak it on a Friday afternoon, not the beginning of a news week. Also, Hastert’s (sp?) press release read to me like it had had every word massaged, not like something that had been knocked out in a morning. Whereas the Dems’ response has not seemed all that well-orchestrated to me, but more a case of people grasping at straws and hoping no one’s noticing that they are drowning. I don’t think Clinton–who’s out there trying to polish up his legacy for the history books–would have come out with a ha, ha, good ol’ Sandy and his messy desk response if he’d had time to think about. Also, the way the details are coming out in a slow but steadily increasing pile of damning evidence, and the specificity of said details–again this feels orchestrated to me.

The Dems were always going to howl about the timing no matter when it came out. And the apolitical, swing voter is going to be way more focused on the story itself than who did the leaking and why. They know how the game is played anyway: if you got the dirty on your opponent you nail him with it. That’s just politics.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:16 am 32. jerry:

Eric:

What I said was that Berger is a big dog playing by big dog rules and will suffer little penalty for his actions as long as he did not reveal the information to the press or sell it bad guys. Remember John Deutch?

The no big deal referred to the fact the Commission had the information in the memos and nothing was hidden from them. From both the Ashcroft testimony and Richard Clarke we know that the final memorandum was highly critical of the Administrationís handling of millenium plot. They knew that Gorelick’s wall was major problem in 1999 and they knew that an alert customs agent who thought thinks didnít look right stopped the plot. Success was matter of luck not policy. So unless we find out Berger passed information to bad people there is no story here.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:17 am 33. Old Dad:

I challenge every poster on this thread to write your Senators and Representative today. We need to focus a huge political flashlight on the deplorable state of our natiional security and intelligence functions.

I don’t know how much national press it has gotten, but both our national labs here in New Mexico have lost top secret data recently. Los Alamos has been shut down for cripes sake.

And now we have a former NSA pantload pilfering top secret documents from the National Archives and a former President of the United States thinks it’s funny.

People, we need to fix this problem, and our representatives need to know that if they don’t show progress starting now, we’ll fix them in November.

This Berger fiasco must not be swept under the rug.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:27 am 34. Katherine:

Clio,

I had the same reaction to Clinton laughing the thing off: I wanted to punch his grin with a crowbar when I saw the picture on Drudge; what stopped me was the realization that only my monitor would suffer.

Re: conspiracy theories, after this monumental blunder I am resigned to believing in almost anything, including something along the lines that Sandy did it as a favor for his dear friend Bill, but only because Clintons have authenticated information that, in his spare time, Sandy and his crazy mother who lives in the attic run a motel, from which no guest ever managed to check out.

And that the motel is property of a Saudi prince.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:27 am 35. Eric Deamer:

jerry:

I see what you’re saying and that seems like a really good reading. I guess my only thought was that, though we do have these other sources to show us how foiling the millenium terrorist plot was just a matter of dumb luck, and to show us other failings of Clinton’s anti-terrorism policy, such as it was, these stolen and, in some cases, destroyed drafts might have some heretofore-unkown, especially damning information. At least, that was my understanding.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:31 am 36. DennisThePeasant:

What a hoot!

Yesterday Tano’s trying manfully to prop up an oh-so-dead Joe Wilson to see if he will twitch, and then today he’s informing us (very knowledgably, of course) that Sandy Berger died last night and should be buried ASAP.

They’re so cute when they’re nervous…

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:36 am 37. Katherine:

jerry,

Is it perhaps possible that big dogs play by big dogs rules until they get caught red handed? If I recall John Deutch had to be pardoned by Clinton to avoid consequences of what he did.

What you are telling me is that you think that Kerry has this election in the bag because I somehow donít see Bush signing Bergerís pardon.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:36 am 38. Knucklehead:

Clio,

How did your Lesser Half come to the Bush Lied, People died conclusion? Was his initial support of the war completely based upon the WMD case? Please send him back to class and to outline the entire WMD case and which portions have been demonstrably accurate and which seem to have been unacceptably inaccurate. So far the only glaring “not yet shown to be inaccurate” portion that I am aware of is the “stockpiles” and there are miles to go before the questions surrounding that are answered.

Now, regarding why someone like Berger would comming career suicide and risk jail time… I don’t claim to understand it but that never stopped me from speculating. For a half century the US government was evolving into a gigantic, unionized jobs program. At the same time it was becoming a bureaucratic behemoth. At the same time the foreign policy/relations part of it was engaged in the Cold War. All these developments are VERY strong influences toward an incredibly “conservative” approach to everything – virtually everything within the machinery moves toward a mindset that is something like, “this is the way things are and the way they will always be at least until such time as I/we are long gone and retired, this is the way we do things and we have good reasons and lots of practice and we’re the professionals so go away and let us do our jobs”.

Add to this a “fourth estate” which went through very similar development and learned to play a certain game to keep their lives as easy and profitable and hi-status as possible and things start to behave almost as if scripted. But a script is unnecessary because everyone has long since learned their part and can play it in their sleep if necessary.

Enter into this a bunch of people as cynical and clever as the Clintonistas and you get a system ripe for being gamed and just the people to game it. And some who were looking out upon a merely comfortable retirement realize there’s opportunity aplenty to join the gamesters, rise in rank (and status and economic rewards).

Now, add in a nearly final piece which is a entire “audience” who just loves this kabuki theater and will gleefully support it and can’t get enough of the insider books and magazine puff-pieces.

Everyone in the system is thriving, wants to continue thriving, knows how to go about that, and has an adoring and rather wealthy audience.

For the final piece of the puzzle, consider that there is some evidence that the Kabuki Theater is on shaky ground, the buildings have become unstable, the audience is beginning to thin and look for different entertainments, and individual careers have either gone as far as they can go or are beginning to near the end of their service lives.

Some of what we are seeing here is the last frenzied scrambling to make quick retirement padding windfall on the book and rubber-chicken speaking circuit and some level of “save the theater and the art form” frenzy and some level of “it ain’t as bad as it seems and I can ride it out” mentality.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:38 am 39. Old Dad:

Jerry,

No doubt it’s important to note that Berger might not have stolen anything that hampered the 9/11 Commission.

But it’s more important, to me, that the SOB could steal the documents in the first place. So we dodged a bullet here. What else was pilfered over the years?

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:38 am 40. DennisThePeasant:

I can hear the conversation right now:

Bring out your dead!

Tano: Here’s one.

That’ll be ninepence.

Berger: I’m not dead yet.

etc…

Berger: I don’t want to go on the cart.

Tano: You’re not fooling anyone, you’ll be stone cold dead in a moment!

Berger: I think I’ll go for a walk…

etc…

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:48 am 41. Knucklehead:

Penwil,

Your ’splanation regarding the “who leaked” makes sense. But “why now”? It seems very likely that both sides knew this card was out there waiting to be played.

I’ll just toss out what comes to mind…

The Dems knew Friday leading into the convention would have been good timing to bury it as quickly and deeply as possible. Poker players such as Dubya and Rove are no fools. The card has an expiration date and maybe they figured Friday was the date. Better to play the card than lose it.

What benefit do the Republicans get from playing the card now other than taking whatever benefit they can get rather than letting the card go to waste? I can’t think of any that seem big to me other than knocking the permanenet loop memeblaster off the air for a couple days leading into the Dem Convention and getting that side on their heels and defensive rather than focused on putting the finishing touches on their Save The World From Bush spectacle. That might be enough.

I suppose a side benefit might be to deflate the ABB festival to some extent – knock some wind out of their sails for some portion of the time they are together and feeding off one another’s frenzy; less frenzy less feeding. Take a little pep out of the pep rally.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:53 am 42. jerry:

Folks:

Berger has been reported as NSA. That is wrong they mean NSC. Berger has never been at NSA. The NSA is being used as shorthand for National Security Advisor, not National Security Agency.

I left off something in my previous post on who gets prosecuted. Samuel L. Morrsion was prosecuted and imprisoned for 1 year for passing a satellite photograph to Jane’s Defense Weekly. The real reason he went to jail was he revealed the existence of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). At that time NRO was the blackest of the intelligence organizations. That one you would go to jail for.

Katherine:

Deutch was never indicted. If Clinton pardoned him, it was preemptive. However, I don’t think there was prosecution in the cards anyway. My security contractor was doing the damage assessment and he didnít mention any criminal indictment on the horizon.

Jul 21, 2004 - 9:53 am 43. Knucklehead:

DtP,

There is a certain look of “Weekend at Bernie’s” here, isn’t there. Except in this case they have a string of corpses in the water and keep propping each up in the speedboat and then saying, “Damn! That ain’t gonna fool nobody for long. Toss that one overboard and gaff us up a different one!”

Jul 21, 2004 - 10:00 am 44. chuck:

Jerry,

I think you are likely right as to the substance of the case. But the political perception is something different. Berger may have done nothing too unusual for a man in his position, nor damaged the national interest, but for a little yap dog like myself, I wonder why the heck he thinks he is so privileged and why these folks are so undisciplined. Exceptions and perks for the big dogs don’t go over well with us small fry, even though we know it’s a fact of life.

Jul 21, 2004 - 10:03 am 45. Charlie (Colorado):

Jerry, I was going to point out that you weren’t being an apologist, you were being a cynic, er, realist, and that you seemed as outraged as anyone, but you seem to have covered that.

Can anyone track down a cite for the Deutsch pardon? I’ve heard it as truth many times, but don’t have the story.

(PS. Roger/Charles, could we get the <sup>, <sub> and <del> tags enabled?)

Jul 21, 2004 - 10:05 am 46. Knucklehead:

JMO, but I think Jerry is trying to give us an education regarding how this sort of thing looks from the inside and help us all not get too irrationally exuberant. But its such a hoot so far. Socks!

WhichitaBoy,

I’ve lost track of which thread is which, but you wondered about why Berger is not in custody. Jerry and some other’s explain that to a reasonable degree – different rules for different dogs, a crime but not a crime that gets folks cuffed and hauled off to the clink, still being investigated so the full details are not completely known.

And even if the administration had the power to have Berger hauled off in shackles would that be a smart play? (I don’t know how the FBI decides when to arrest or not for this sort of case, but I assume it is rarely a decision made all the way at the top – I doubt Ashcroft is deciding when to send the tanks into the compound walls here). If there’s no evidence he gave information to someone who would use it to attack us (faxed a copy to OBL or the mullahs) but rather just tried to cover his and Bubba’s asses and help out Kerry, what would the spin be right now if Berger were clamped in irons? There’s no end of fuss about the Pedula (sp?) arrest, could you imagine if “The Bushies” had Berger under lock and key?

Jul 21, 2004 - 10:18 am 47. jerry:

Chuck:

When I worked for the Navy my secretary told me about one of my processors. Apparently, he was half listening to the two admins out front complaining that he treated them like peasants. Well, he sticks his head out of his office doors and said, “well, I treat that way because you are peasants.” That is why the Bergerís of world do what they do.

Got to tell you that is very distracting from my current task of right an action memo for signature. I want no exciting news for the rest of the week. I end up staying much to late because I spend my time being distracted by this much more enlightening discussion…

Jul 21, 2004 - 10:24 am 48. Katherine:

Looky what treasures 3 minutes of Googling brings:

From Johnatan Pollard:

“(Ö) national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger told President Clinton that he supported pardoning Deutch on the merits, the former official said, adding that Berger was not directly approached by Deutch or his attorneys.

Berger and other senior White House officials believed Deutch deserved a pardon even though his home computer security violations were egregious. They cited his overall contributions to the government over many years and the fact that there is no evidence that any of the classified material he mishandled was ever obtained by unauthorized individuals.

“An awful lot of people outside of the government called . . . and said this would be a very good thing to happen – it had a lot of support in the national security world,” the official said.

Shelby disagreed, saying Clinton’s pardon of Deutch could “have an extremely demoralizing effect on the rank and file within the intelligence community. The clear message is if you are connected, you walk.”

http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2001/021601e.htm

And this:

Senate Committee Questions Clintonís Pardon of Deutch

THE WASHINGTON POST — WASHINGTON

“Clinton pardoned Deutch on Jan. 20 for mishandling hundreds of highly classified intelligence documents on unsecure home computers linked to the Internet, making them vulnerable to cyber-attack”.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V121/N4/shorts2_4.4w.html

Senate committee investigating Deutch pardon

http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/02/16/deutch.pardon/

“The pardon caught Justice Department officials by surprise. It came less than a day after they had secured Deutchís signature on a plea agreement — nullified by the pardon — in which he admitted to a misdemeanor for unauthorized retention of classified material and agreed to pay a $5,000 fine.”

And the whole list:

Clinton Pardon’s List

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010120/aponline135239_000.htm

Conclusion: there was no indictment, but there was a plea agreement that was nullified by the surprise pardon and our Sandy was very much OK with this.

Maybe I am turning into conspiracy theorist but something tells me that Mr Berger is an old hand in this kind of “mishandling” of top secret documents.

Jul 21, 2004 - 10:34 am 49. jerry:

Katherine:

Deutch’s violation was several orders of magnitude greater then Berger’s from we know now. Deutch had a whole load of CIA material on his home computer that was connected via AOL to the world. Interestingly enough they found a lot of [adult] porno on the computer. He claims it was his teen-age son who was responsible for that. As far as we know, Sandy lifted some copies of drafts memoranda to protect the “Big He” from embarrassment.

Jul 21, 2004 - 10:52 am 50. Clio:

Jerry,

I’d hazard a guess that someone (POTUS himself?) has a marginal notation to the effect of UBL being a harmless loon or bogeyman. Wouldn’t THAT make a great bumper sticker for the Republicans? Trust these guys? Not for at least a decade.

Katherine,

Like the bin Bates Motel idea! Or how about this one: Berger could claim that it wasn’t him who stole the documents–it was a sinister, disguised agent of a foreign power–okay, maybe even an alien escaped from the Los Alamos lab. Might explain the disappearance of all those computers there, as well.

Jul 21, 2004 - 11:03 am 51. Katherine:

jerry,

I am not denying that Deutchís offense may have been magnitudes greater than Bergerís and since big dogs have their own rules and ì nothing bad happenedî in normal times they both would and should just get a slap on a wrist; ìno harm no foulî. I was pointing out that Berger is on record saying that he considers violations of security as no big deal, a hardly reassuring statement from former NSA. He said it in February 2001, which may have been understandable then, but his actions demonstrate that he still thinks this way. I was not terribly upset over it then (silly me), but something happened in the meantime that makes me furious when I see those bozos thinking that we time-vortexed into antebellum world.

There is another point: I am not a lawyer but I think that in establishing guilt the concept of intent is important. It is easy for me to believe likely benign intent in Deutchís case (convenience and laziness). I do not perceive the same regarding Bergerís. No matter how ìsloppyì he is.

Jul 21, 2004 - 11:27 am 52. jerry:

Katherine:

John Deutch was not suffering from laziness or looking at convience when he used his computer for CIA business. It was arrogance. That is the kind of kind of arrogance that Berger is showing. In Deutch’s case, the arrogance could express itself by an attitude that says “I am DCI, so if I want to do work on my home computer I will.” Berge shows his arrogance by authorizing him self to take documents from the archives to [perhaps] save his former boss and patron from scandal. They were both willful actions that would have had more serious consequences for your basic GS-15 (that’s me)

Jul 21, 2004 - 11:41 am 53. Old Dad:

Jerry,

I have no reason to doubt that Deutch’s offense was several orders of magnitude greater than Bergers, although it’s hard for me to understand how so serious an offense as Deutch’s might only be punishable by a year in jail.

As I understand it, the docs that Berger swiped were coded for the highest level of security possible. To this outsider, that means the docs would be dangerous to national security in the wrong hands. Berger took a series of these and can’t account for all that he took. Some might have been destroyed, but I’d need proof to believe that. If Berger is found to be culpable he deserves far more than a slap on the wrist. Now the statute and the courts might disagree. Perhaps, we need to assess.

Jul 21, 2004 - 11:46 am 54. Katherine:

No argument here, jerry.

I normally assume that monumental arrogance is a given for all the big dogs.

Jul 21, 2004 - 11:51 am 55. PeterUK:

Jerry,

Whilst there may be no story to Bergers actions,there certainly is a joke.As an ordinary person,I find it hilarious that the former National Security Advisor got caught stealing and was so dumb he went back several times to steal the copies. “Hmmmm,I could have sworn I took that yesterday,still they’ll never think of the socks”

Perhaps he missed his work so much he took it home with him?

I’m surprised he hasn’t used the Lord of the Rings defence.

Ladies and Gentlemen may I offer you Mountebank,a quack who declaims his wares from a podium, a charlatan,a buffoon,seems to cover the the mint tea drinker and the paper fetishist.

Jul 21, 2004 - 12:35 pm 56. Kevin P:

peterUK:

He will resort to the most popular defense in the Democratic party these days, I did it because I could, because of my dual natures, and because Ken Starr made me do it

Jul 21, 2004 - 1:45 pm 57. Tano:

So while y’all are hanging Sandy out to dry, please remind me, what should the consequences be for outing a covert CIA agent, in the midst of a war, for slimy political purposes?

Just trying to get a handle on how much credibility to grant y’all.

Jul 21, 2004 - 2:44 pm 58. Kevin P:

Tano:

If the law was broken, then the person should be prosecuted. You should read the law.It will be a tough prosecution because it involves intent.But if the law was broken, then the law should be defended.

Jul 21, 2004 - 4:03 pm 59. PeterUK:

“Just trying to get a handle on how much credibility to grant y’all.”

“My name is Ozimandius,king of kings,look upon my works,ye mighty and despair”

Humble ain’t he?

Jul 21, 2004 - 4:03 pm 60. rgvdh:

Tano sez:

“Just consider it a little spring training for the next eight years.”

What, are you saying that if Kerry wins we can expect eight years of appalling security breaches?

For once I think I agree with you.

Jul 22, 2004 - 3:03 am 61. thibaud:

So Bill knew Berger was under investigation but Kerry did not?? The Clinton angle’s looking more and more interesting.

Keeping Kerry in the dark allows Berger to take the hit for Clinton’s NSA failings, and most of the fallout will attach not to Bill but to Kerry–interestingly, BEFORE the election gets serious. That is, at a point when Kerry may be wounded but not mortally so.

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 no 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.

Dick Morris, thoughts please?

Jul 22, 2004 - 8:00 am

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