Berger Fries And Wilson Stews

Stories in the News ^ | July 22, 2004 | Michael Reagan

[renotse]

What a quandary the Democrats and their media allies are facing. Both have to explain the inexplicable - how in just a matter of a week or two, top Kerry advisers Sandy Berger and Joseph C. Wilson IV have been immersed in muck and driven off the Kerry reservation. Sandy Berger lifted a whole bunch of top secret documents, reportedly stuffed them in his pants and socks, misplaced some of the purloined items and says it was all an honest mistake.

Mr. Wilson now stands revealed to be the liar he falsely claimed President Bush to be. In both cases, the muck sticks to the Kerry campaign, which doesn't appear to be too choosy in picking advisers to their candidate.

To the mainstream media - now trying either to explain away what authorities insist is a felony by terming Berger's theft "inadvertent," or simply avoiding covering the incidents altogether - when Democrats cross the line and commit a crime it is a "mistake."

In the face of the disclosures that Joe Wilson lied about both the role of his wife in getting the CIA to send him to Niger, and his claims that there wasn't a shred of evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to get his hands on yellow cake nuclear material, John Kerry and John Edwards and much of the media continue to charge that the president lied to the American people about this matter.

The Kerry-Edwards campaign plan is to present the president as a liar and if their charge itself turns out to be a pack of lies, it doesn't deter them. After all, when Mr. Kerry can't seem to get his own facts straight about anything, how can he be expected to shy away from propagating others' lies about his opponent?

These latest disclosures have disclosed just how shoddy the Kerry campaign is, and should give Americans a glimpse of what an ungodly mess a Kerry administration would prove to be.

Mike Reagan, the eldest son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network.

[rjsimmons]

Quote

Sandy Berger lifted a whole bunch of top secret documents, reportedly stuffed them in his pants and socks, misplaced some of the purloined items and says it was all an honest mistake.

Anyone even remotely associated with classified material knows that there is no such thing as an 'honest mistake' when it comes to controlled documents. There are far too many levels depending upon the classification. The documents in question were classified TS-CWA (Top Secret, Code Word Access), typically "Eyes Only". Even if they were only 'notes' as Sec. Berger claims, they still were classified. Each page is numbered "x of xxx" and signed for when they are removed from the vault, logged by the Classified Materials Control Center (CMCC), indicated where the items are to be taken and who is in possession of the item. They can only be viewed in highly controlled spaces.

Bottom line, a former NSA knows better. To have his boss attempt to shrug it off as "he was always messy" is to reveal just how cavalier the attitude of the former administration towards security was.