Posted on 08/03/2004 7:49:54 PM PDT by Libloather
Berger flap was overplayed
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Last modified Tuesday, August 3, 2004 1:03 PM PDT
So the Berger affair apparently was just another Washington flap, drummed up to make political points and blown out of proportion because the press had a slow day.
The Wall Street Journal reported on the matter last Friday, although hardly anybody else mentioned it. An e-mail from Portland pointed it out to the D-H.
As you'll recall, a couple of weeks ago Samuel "Sandy" Berger, the former national security adviser in the Clinton administration, was accused of having taken classified material home from the National Archives, which is against the law. He had obtained access to the material in order to answer questions from the 9/11 Commission.
On Friday the Journal reported that officials looking into this admittedly unauthorized removal of classified material had reported that "no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the commission ..."
This conclusion, according to the Journal, apparently lays to rest any question of whether material was withheld from the commission or destroyed - which had been inferred as the dark motive for Berger to take the material with him.
The story was emphatic that "no originals were missing and that all the material that Mr. Berger had access to had been turned over to the commission."
So, if all the stuff that Berger reviewed is accounted for, and if nothing is missing, what's so important about him having taken some of it with him in the first place? It still sounds like a breach of the law on handling classified records. But it does not sound like some underhanded scheme to thwart the 9/11 commission, or to hide something, or to shift blame to the Bush people. It was, as Berger has said himself on TV, just a dumb thing to do.
The story was on the front page of our paper when it broke. It evidently didn't merit that kind of play. It was not important. And if it was interesting, it was interesting only as an example of how politics sometimes works to distort harmless events. (hh)
I may have been 10 years old - but I do believe I remember the same headlines during the Nixon administration...
"Democrat Herald"
Has the NYtimes finally decided to change it's name?
Tell "overblown" to Julius and Ethyl Rosenberg. Slow news day my arse. Sandy clearly broke several federal laws, put national security at risk and tried to change the information available to a commission trying to determine how to stop a repeat of an attack on the country in which nearly 3,000 people died and a trillion dollars of damage to property and the economy happened. Saying "overblown" is an insult to a lot of people's memory.
why do they say no original material. to me all this says is he stole duplicates.
So, if I claim 'dumb' on a bank heist, do I get arrested? I am getting dizzy with all of this spin!!!! Berger either broke the law, or he didn't. Which one is it?
Sandy Berger should be brought to justice for his crimes
Oh, ok. move along, nothing to see here.....not.
I guess if you are a 'Rat this is old hat but to the average American, the news that a key advisor to the DemocRat nominee committed multiple felonies by stealing classified documents is more than just filler for a slow news day.
I DON'T THINK SOOOO!!!!
That is quite a bit to gloss over as a slow news day. I, for one, want answers to the questions I pose.
Nothing was withheld except the ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS, before Berger added notes flattering to Clinton and replaced them back at the Archives.
If anything, it's been underplayed because of the Hacking case in Utah!
No slow news day, just a very convenient murder (not unlike many murders committed daily) in Salt Lake City to help divert attention away.
Anyone ever hear of "Clickit or Ticket"? Over-reacting? Points on driving record? Move on? NOPE!!!
My brother buys the Albany (OR) Democrat-Herald Sunday edition for the TV Guide section, and he says that the paper is aptly named, though "Red" Herald might be more appropriate.
This opinion piece is laughable, in almost every paragraph. Laws "might" have been broken, but nothing important happened, according to the writer. That line says a lot about the writer, and the newspaper that published it.
Licorice: "What you don't understand is that my savior, John Kerry,
explained to me that there are "two Americas".
Some Democrats in power (or past power) are above all laws, even murder, even treason,
even destruction of federal CODE-level documents.
By the way, no rodent would do such a thing.
Compared to the Democrats, we rodents are all patriots."
Edwards was correct: There are two Americas.
"WELCOME TO THE REAL AMERICA WHERE CRIMINALS GET TO BE
CELEBRITIES AND CELEBRITIES GET AWAY WITH MURDER."
"TO DIE FOR" Columbia Pictures
"Flap" is a code word used by the press to indicate to the rest of the press that a coverup is underway and they had better play along if they want to get along.
Amen!!
Yeah, apparently. The Washington Republicans were bo-o-o-ored on a slow news day, so they decided to fake a story about the ex-National Security Advisor getting caught stuffing TOP TOP SECRET documents in his jox and socks. What was cool was that the guy actually went along with it. Sandy Berger decided it really was a funny story, so he spoke to the press and told everyone that it was ALL OK because it had been one colossal accident!! He got the ex-Prez to get in on it, too, and Clinton almost couldn't speak for laughing so hard over clumsy Sandy with the nation's secrets always tumbling out of his drawers (both kinds).
Man, Bush got a lot of political points out of it, so in the end it was all worth it. Hilarious!!!
The problem is that the WSJ article has been discredited. I called the reporter and asked for a statement, but got no reply. I also e-mailed James Taranto and asked if the reporter was taking lessons from Jayson Blair, and would he reply before going on vacation. No such luck. Since it was a Friday, the WSJ had the whole week-end to bury the story of their Jayson Blair wannabe reporter.
The fact that "no original materials are missing", could also mean he returned the originals after making copies.
And what exactly did he put in his socks?
Yeah,what's all the fuss about Sandy stuffing classified documents down his pants, up his jacket sleeves and down his socks. No biggie. Sandy will be Secretary of State in the Kerry administration. Laws are for the 'little people', not RAT movers and shakers. Move right along and vote for Kerry and the hamster (Edwards).
Thank you. That's exactly what Sandy B. was up to, covering his and Clinton's large behinds.
The WSJ story, which I haven't seen and can't locate in any archive, and which apparently was never posted to this site, apparently concerned some 'unsourced' comment from someone in the archives, likely an old Clinton appointee, who probably just said whatever he wanted to say. And perhaps the WSJ just didn't bother getting a second opinion. The problem is that many had reported missing documents (even some returned that shouldn't have been). For that to be disputed, it would have to be very clearly explained, and not in some 'unsourced' off-hand remark. Clearly something was found in the archives before Berger arrived, on a couple of occasions, that is no longer found there, and that was never presented to the 911 Commission, quite obviously. People can understand why some on that commission would be embarrassed at the suspicion that they rushed their recommendations rather than wait for a full accounting on the Berger matter, which could have influenced what they ultimately recommended - for what it was worth.
It has to do with what is classified as "original". Is the document marked up by Clinton "original" or is it considered a "copy".
Either way, it's illegal, he knew it, he got caught and he gave them up.
The question is, did he use the documents to create talking points for Kerry?
LOL, I thought I saw a thread saying he had been pardoned but the media doesn't know it yet?? Can't imagine that's true or could happen so fast but who knows!
The three Gitmo prisoners are getting lots of play.
The USSR wouldn't have cared if it had the orignal 'blueprint' for a new US weapons system, or just an accurate copy of the blueprints, for example. It's the designs they were after- not the paper. If a spy had to take photos and leave the paper in its folder at the source, the photos would be sufficient for their purposes. So also in Sandy Berger's case- a crime would have occured if so much as a photo of such documents' pages had been made - even if no documents had been removed and stuffed into his pants.
The author if this piece is sucking up the slop 'leaked' by the defense attorneys the other day.
There seems to be some effort at muddying the waters here as well. Berger took DRAFTS of certain documents. these are not exactly xerox copies. These drafts would show, by the notations in their margins, items crossed out, overwritten, etc. In other words, sequential drafts would illustrate the process by which information was culled, edited and added to a national security report. From this, considerable information could be derived about the role of leadership in the creation of the report, the intentions of each player, and the administration's policies and goals at the time.
Sandy Berger felt it important enough to steal multiple copies of the same document.
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lol!
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