Sandy Berger Probed Over Terror Memos (stuffed in jacket, pants, SOCKS!)

[Blue Rectangle]

Gergen's defense of Berger seems to be:
1. Nothing happened
2. Even if something happened, it's not important
3. Even if it were important, it's all the Republicans' fault for saying that it's important.

Joe Lockhart's defense is just as bad:
"I suggest that person [the un-named source inside the investigation] is lying," he [Lockhart] said. "And if that person has the guts, let's see who it is who made the comment that Sandy Berger stuffed something into his socks."

Lockhart is safe doing whatever name-calling he wants, since the source inside the investigation would surely be fired if their name was made public.

Four years latter and Lockhart is still the attack dog for the Clinton administration.  Just in case anyone had forgotten, Gergen and Lockhart remind us of how charges against Clintonites were handled: with the character assassination of the accusers.

[Blue Rectangle]

I am not taking sides on this between Democrats and Republicans. As a retired military person who held a high level security clearance whether the classified information is an original or a copy makes no difference. There are particular protocols for handling classified information especially Top Secret or higher. It is inconceivable that someone of Mr. Berger's stature isn't extremely familiar with the regs. I don't buy his "honest mistake" story. He HAD to work at it to make copies of TS documents and then once made they had to be serialized and accounted for. I do not question his intentions or anything else. I am not taking a position on the timing of all this. I only know from 33 years of experience with classified information what the rules are and how difficult it is to get access to it and how strict the accountability rules are.

As someone who has working in the IT department for a company that routinely dealt with classified material and as someone with a family member with TS clearance, I can say that what Berger has admitted to so far is considered a very serious crime.  His cavalier attitude towards "accidentally" disposing of TS documents (some reports say higher classification) is truly incredible.  People lose their clearance and face possible prosecution for throwing a document into the wrong waste bin.  People go to federal prison for walking out of a secure area with classified documents.  Anyone who has ever had a security briefing, even one who does not have a clearance level himself, knows full-well how serious this is.

[Blue Rectangle]

Guards left Berger alone, sources say Ex-security adviser reportedly told monitors to violate rules as he took breaks, took files.


Washington — 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.

"He was supposed to be monitored at all times but kept asking the monitor to leave so he could make private calls," a senior law enforcement source told the Daily News.

A secure room would have only a secure telephone line.  Also, bringing in a cell phone would be strictly forbidden.  So there are a few questions:
1. Were these calls on a secure line, or on a cell phone (several rules were apparently bent/broken for Mr. Berger, so he might have had a cell)?
2. If it was a secure line, was it capable of calls to non-secure phones? (some are, some aren't)
3. Were the conversations recorded?
4. Who was he calling?

[Blue Rectangle]

This suits Clinton fine in two respects.  He doesn't get whacked by the commission and in turn Bush doesn't get whacked either.

The latter is good because if Bush doesn't get hurt, Kerry doesn't get an advantage in the election and maybe Bush wins.  That's good for Hillary in 2008.

Am I overdoing it?

Three factions have been described so far: Bush&Republicans in general, Clinton/DNC, and Kerry.  Mark claims Kerry has been out of the loop and that Bush and Clinton have a pact of some kind.  I have two questions:
1. If Kerry wins, then Bush is finished politically (like Gore).  So what is to stop Republicans from dropping their bomb, thus hurting Kerry and Dems in Congress (guilty by association, even if they are innocent)?
2. If Bush wins, he's a lame duck.  The Republicans could drop their bomb, and destroy Hillary's chances in 2008.  Could Rice be hurt?

Doesn't sound to me like the Clinton faction is good shape after the election--they lose all their leverage, regardless of the outcome.  Unless, of course, pro-Bush policy statements from Bill and Hillary (on Iraq, 9/11, etc.) are pre-payments for future silence on Bush's side.

OK, one more set of questions:
What is Clarke's role in this?  Why was he so anti-Bush policy and so soft on Clinton?  What did Berger tell Kerry before Rice's testimony?  If there was some kind of pact, why did Kerry try to brow-beat Rice into testifying publically?  Did Berger tell Kerry not to pursue that issue and was ignored?  Why is the 9/11 committee so quick to say that whatever Berger did had no impact on their report?

[Blue Rectangle]

Richard Clarke's role in this is that he knows the real DIRT on both parties. His interests seem to be two main issues...one is convince the world how brilliant Richard Clarke is and how he was unfairly passed over by Bush, and two, bring about long term change in the way we gather and deal with intelligence.

As for what could happen if Bush were to lose...every day that Bush and the Republicans let go by without revealing the true nature of this scandal damages their long term claim to being the "good guys" in the issue. Also, even if they "went nuclear" on the Democrats with the truth, Bush is also vulnerable to getting trashed for something he did after he took office, it's just not as bad as what happened under Clinton/Berger/Reno/Albright.

Clarke’s motivations still don’t make sense.  Why cover for Clinton/Berger?  Blasting both administrations would be the best way to make himself look good and to promote real change.

It is interesting that you mention Reno.  I remember the way she took the blame for Waco and the way she resisted pressure from Clinton throughout his scandals.  She isn’t the type to cover-up for political gain.  When she testified that no one had asked her about the legality of killing or capturing bin Laden, I knew that Berger’s claims that such plans were on the table were a bunch of lies.  If she has any information on this issue, I would expect her to blab to pretty much everyone about it.

Also: I was going to post, soon after the Berger story broke, that Kerry’s best strategy would be to distance himself from Berger quickly.  Since ex-Clintonites seemed to be in a fighting mood, I thought that Kerry would waffle for a few days, then make the announcement right before the convention (today, Friday, would have been a good time).  Before I could get the post off, news comes that Berger was out.  Was Kerry’s amazing quickness due to prior knowledge?  If Kerry was involved in the leak, then that explains it.