Sloppy Berger

The American Spectator ^ | 7-21-04 | George Neumayr

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Sloppy Berger

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Published 7/21/2004 12:08:11 AM

The image of Sandy Berger stuffing notes into his socks at the National Archives conveys the culture of carelessness and corruption under Bill Clinton far better than anything the 9/11 Commission will report. The Commission fails to see that the fundamental explanation for America's porous security before 9/11 is not structural but cultural. Eight years of Clintonian indiscipline exposed America to attack by disciplined terrorists. America's elite are too enlightened to notice that lax morality produces lax security. But America's enemies are happy to notice even if America's elites won't. Like robbers sizing up a slipshod neighborhood as an easy target, the terrorists saw from the security lapses America casually accepted during the Clinton years that a 9/11 attack was possible. Perhaps Sandy Berger can defend his stock-stuffing at the National Archives as normative behavior from the Clinton years. Recall when ex-bar bouncer Craig Livingstone, elevated to a security position in the Clinton White House by Hillary Clinton, "inadvertenly"(Berger's word for cramming notes into his clothing) lifted 900 FBI files on political appointees from the Bush Sr. and Reagan administrations. This was mere "sloppiness," of course, as innocent and accidental as placing security information in one's tube sock. The Clinton administration raised inadvertence to something of an art form. Berger's friends were particularly adept at it. When one of Clinton's CIA directors, John Deutch, inadvertenly took home a CIA-issued computer with top secret information on it, Sandy Berger rushed to his defense, and succeeded in persuading Clinton to pardon him. "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," reported the Washington Post back then. So there you have it: Go ahead and take classified material home as long as you make sure it doesn't get into the wrong hands. Berger must have been reasoning along these lines during his field trip to the National Archives. During the Clinton years, you could always count on a report about something missing, from laptops White House interns lifted to computers and documents untraceable at vital agencies. After the State Department lost a computer once, the Clinton administration explained it away merely as an official forgetting to close a door to a "secure" conference room. When White House officials walked off with hundreds of thousands of dollars of presidential souvenirs from Air Force One at the end of Clinton's term, that was explained away as precedent. When a spy placed an eavesdropping device in the State Department, that too was an accidental oversight. Apparently he just walked through the front door. The FBI reported after the incident that its officials had seen a Russian spy loitering near the Foggy Bottom entrance. Hazel O'Leary, Clinton's Energy Secretary, had figured out his security ethos early on, and just dispensed with security badges for visitors to nuclear labs. Placing security badges on foreign visitors, she famously explained, was discriminatory. Then it was learned that nuclear secrets had been nabbed by Chinese Communists. Sandy Berger's response? "We're talking about breaches of security that happened in the mid-1980s." Berger was criticized at the time for being blasé about security lapses and failing to report Chinese espionage at nuclear labs to Congress, and for having gone out of his way to interfere with a Justice Department investigation of Loral Space & Communications Ltd. for an illegal transfer of missile technology to China. Berger's Loral lobbying (the press reported that Loral chairman Bernard Schwartz was one of the Democrats' largest soft-money contributors during 1995-1996, and had hired a former National Security Council spokesman) was successful. Clinton granted a waiver to Loral for the technology transfer, just as Berger successfully pushed Clinton to pardon Deutch. Now Berger has placed himself in a position where it looks like he may need one. George Neumayr is managing editor of The American Spectator.

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[Reagan Man]

America's elite are too enlightened to notice that lax morality produces lax security.

Good article and great point.

[counterpunch]

 
 
Click HERE for

The Kerry/Edwards Files
-at-
The CouNTeRPuNcH Collection

[discipler]

Berger stole, Clinton laughed, Democrats defended, Dan Rather ignored, America slept, and God took note.

[Samwise]

[LifeTrek]

Nail on the head! I couldn't have said it better myself, except I have now for the past 12 years! The same Clinton cultural bankruptcy gave us the environment of the Enrons.
DKK

[martin_fierro]

The Clinton administration raised inadvertence to something of an art form.

Boy, I'll say.

[nopardons]

The REAL Clinton "LEGACY"......lying,security breeches,and problems with trousers.

[koolaidsmile]

"Sloppy"? Yeah thats it!

And Winona Ryder was just "Sloppy" shopper.

[LiberalBassTurds]

Boy does he ever hit the nail right on the head. Excellent article. We'll pay dearly for years for the way Clinton's clowns ran this country. I hope there's a special place in Hell reserved for all of them.

LBT

-=-=-

[BigSkyFreeper]

Every time I see his face on TV, I can't help but be reminded of his facial cheeks. They're so fat, he reminds me of a squirrel with the winter stash of nuts stuffed in it's cheeks.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[nutmeg]

The same Clinton cultural bankruptcy gave us the environment of the Enrons.

Exactly!

[D-fendr]

this lady's tryin to bust ya:

I enjoy your website and don't like seeing your material stolen and doubt TAS does either, so I thought you might like to know that TAS-copyrighted material is being routinely republished in full without permission at FreeRepublic.com. An article entitled "Sloppy Berger" is the most recent example.

-- Donna Gruber
Miami Shores, Florida

From TAS letters to the editor.

Hi Donna!

[leprechaun9]

One Berger - WELL DONE and QUICKLY!

[JHBOAT]

Re: The Sandy Berger Escapade/Theft/Lies

What else would be expected from the Commucrat Party?

Thank you,

JHBOAT

[YaYa123]

This blast from the past column is pertinent reading after we find out Mary McCarthy blithely gave up classified information to reporter Dana Goodfellow Priest.

Clinton supporters still in the CIA, still in government, and still infecting the MSM are destroying our country, and they do it with the support of elected democrats who put partisan political advantage over our national security.

Shame on Democrat Jane Harmon for equating the legal release of information by the president, to the illegal leaking of classified information to a reporter. Harman spewed out this Democrat talking point lie this morning on FOX NEWS. This next week, other Democrats will join her in defending McCarthy, a woman who should be in mortal fear of spending 10 years behind bars. She deserves no less.