[Sacajaweau]

We must be wearing the same tinfoil. I just wrote the same basic premise and then went back to read the comments I missed, including yours.

[Judith Anne]

Reynolds Heavy-Duty wide, right?

I think we're on to something...

[Eroteme]

I was of the mind that the leak was a McAuliffe calculation--get it out now, in July, instead of letting the Bush campaign use it in Oct.

However, you posit an interesting alternative theory.

Certainly, the very fact Berger did this at all suggests that the info contained in the documents was explosive.

It was an extraordinarily risky undertaking--and yet, Berger, weighing his options, apparently decided that stealing classified documents was LESS risky than leaving them there. Whatever consequences he might suffer for the theft did not, in his mind, rise to the level of what would happen if the documents come to light.

So now, having failed to complete the coverup, the very same consequences he so feared are back in play. Perhaps you're right. He'd rather take his chances with an ethical justice dept. than with whomever those documents finger.