"Zees matter with Sandy Berger izz Nothing. Nada. Rien.
First he gave me the taken documents, but then he did not."
Posted on 07/20/2004 12:31:29 PM PDT by areafiftyone
Bad news for John Kerry: In its shamefully inadequate coverage of the Sandy Berger scandal, even the New York Times today admitted that he was an adviser to the Democrat presidential candidate.
Terry McAuliffe's favorite propaganda sheet, of course, merely mentioned the connection in passing, but fortunately Fox News Channel and other media are digging below the surface.
"There's an ethic here — that is of strict discipline, of not letting the fact you're working on a political campaign start to color your actions when it comes to national security," Hunter said.
"From now on, until the election, everything like this will have a spotlight put on it, examined very carefully," Lott said.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., called the news "surprising." He told Fox that "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."
Asked whether Kerry should dump Berger, the former rival said, "That's up to John Kerry, but I'm sure he will stay on the team unless there's some charges that are proven that leads Senator Kerry to do otherwise."
"The documents that Sandy supposedly took were copies. There are copies elsewhere throughout the Archives and elsewhere in Washington, so it's not like he was trying to cover something up," Goodstein maintained to FNC.
"That's an essential question that needs to be answered from the Kerry campaign: Did they benefit from documents that they should not have had?"
Oops: Kerry's campaign is already distancing itself from Berger. Handlers are emphasizing that the former national security bigwig was just "an informal adviser," not a paid official with the campaign.
As for Berger's obvious angling for an invite to be CIA director in case of a Democrat victory in November, you can forget all about that now.
Yeah its probably a problem when in the last week one of your secuirty advisors gets proven to be a pathological liar (Richard Clarke) and another is stealing classified documents like a teenage shoplifter (at least Nixon had the sense to hire pros as opposed to this yahoo) and then "misplacing" some of them. Did anyone check Hillary's office? They're probably between her old billing records and the FBI files. At the very least it shows a lack of seriousness about national security but chances are the implications are actually much darker.
"Officials with the Bush-Cheney campaign point out that Berger gave a surprise background briefing to reporters on Feb. 27 on behalf of the Kerry campaign, in which he outlined airline security issues apparently drawn from the now-missing classified memos Berger is accused of removing from the National Archives," FNC reported.
And did'nt Kerry say the threat of terrorism was "exaggerated"? That is irresponsible and shows Kerry is unfit for office.
The New York Times ought to be ashamed of itself for burying this story in their paper. If Condi Rice had taken secret documents home with her it would have been front page.
It doesn't affect Kerry's biggest appeal to his supporters: Kerry isn't Bush.
"Zees matter with Sandy Berger izz Nothing. Nada. Rien.
First he gave me the taken documents, but then he did not."
Is putting documents in your socks considered inadvertant? Or maybe its just weird?
What can be expected when the most ethically challenged and morally devoid president, representing the party of lying, perverted traitors, appoints his staff? Does anyone think this is anything but a regular day in the office for Clinton appointees?
This story: 2 inches on pg A13 "Clinton Aide Berger is Under Invesigation", bottom of the page.
Seriesly disgusting.
Making a big deal about the Kerry campaign connections of Berger is not going to have a huge effect, because the theft took place long before Kerry was nominated. Was Berger even working for him then?
I just heard one of our local stations reporting how "Berger inadvertantly removed some documents from the National Archives"
Man they cranked up the spin machine to max rpm's already.
That was the part that jumped out at me. Let's see if we can find that statement by Berger. It may shed some light onto what was stolen.
Reminder: These are the folks Kerry trusts for his national security team: A proven liar, and an accused pant-stuffing felon.
And I guess he inadvertantly threw some of them away as well. Is that what people do? -- throw documents away without looking at them?
Sounds like he's been taking lessons from the Clintons. Remember the billing records, Vince Foster, etc.
There's also the fact that Berger has committed a federal felony. He willfully violated federal laws regarding the handling of classified information, and the penalties for violating those laws include either 10 or 20 years in a federal pen along with a monetary fine ($10,000 or so, IIRC).
No one can convince me that a former national security advisor thought there was nothing illegal about removing classified documents from a classified reading room. If the story about him stuffing them in his socks is true, then he should be publicly castigated, fined, imprisoned, and never heard from again until he asks you "wanna supersize that?" as you order your Big Mac value meal.
when CNN was covering this today, Berger was called "An informal Kerry advisor" on the bottom of the screen...Not to be confused wiht a real, actual, formal advisor!
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