Posted on 07/22/2004 10:37:58 PM PDT by conservative in nyc
xactly why Samuel Berger removed copies of classified documents from the National Archives last October is not clear. Mr. Berger, the former national security adviser to President Clinton who was a Kerry adviser until Tuesday, wasn't going to be able to alter the records or give John Kerry an edge. The missing documents were copies of memos, which Mr. Kerry would have had access to anyway.
If, as Mr. Berger says, the removal was simply a blunder, it was inexcusably careless legally and daft politically. Senator Kerry can't be too happy that Mr. Berger compounded his initial sin by not informing him of the Justice Department's inquiry when it began in January. Mr. Berger and his lawyers may be indignant about the investigation being leaked, but they must have known it would get out.
Meanwhile, the Republican hyperventilating is overdone. The same Congressional leaders who shrugged at the leaking of a C.I.A. agent's identity to punish her husband, a critic of administration policy, demand hearings on Mr. Berger. The politicians should all let the Justice Department do its job.
Of real concern is that bleeding, yet again, of politics into criminal justice. After initially claiming it knew nothing of the case, the White House has had to admit it was informed. That sort of heads-up taints both sides. It leaves the White House open to questions about whether it timed a leak to the release of the 9/11 panel's report, and it feeds cynicism about the independence of federal prosecutors. Mr. Kerry, by the way, ought to stop stoking that cynicism with groundless claims that the prosecution of Kenneth Lay was improperly delayed.
For its part, the White House's denials about this leak would sound more credible if it assigned some urgency to solving the C.I.A. leak case.
But there's still that little matter of the purloined foreign policy press release from the Kerry website that Kerry seems not to be willing to explain....
Pretty evenhanded for the Times, I'd say. Much more so than the Washington Post, which seems to have swallowed the Joe Lockhart-Lanny Davis spin hook, line, and sinker.
bump
spin spin spin
The Compost's coverage has been more evenhanded and factual than the Slimes, which has focused on who leaked (the Bush administration, of course, DUH!) instead of what was leaked.
It is the MSM that says "this is political" and then they yell loudly because they have claimed it political.
Sandy Burgler's intent is absolutely irrelevant. He stole multiple top-tier classified documents on five SEPERATE occasions.
The act, not the intent, should be the focus of criminal investigators. Once is an accident, twice is a crime...five could well be treasonous!
Re the CIA leak case it appears to have evaporated--The Washington Times reports today that Plame was outed twice before--once by a spy and another time more recently when Cuba had access to what was supposed to have been a sealed document disclosing it..That case is done.
As for the leak about Berger and the timing--a nonsensical connection to the White House seems to be creeping its way through the mainstream media.
The media have jumped on the Berger jet powered Timing dreidel. It is ridiculous and just goes to show how little they care for truth, their own reputations, and logic.
Isn't it curious that the leak was to the very same reporter that Lanny Davis used to get bad news out of the way for Clinton at times of Clinton's choosing (read his book).?
When would have been a good time for this to come out: When Ben Veniste and Kerrey were grandstanding? When Clarke was lying? When Wilson was lying?When Berger was testifying? When Clinton was? When Bush was? At any time during this hotly contested election?
Since the White House knew the substance of the report and it was not damaging--why would anyone there have an incentive to leak this now? Why not in October, for example?
Besides Berger who is most hurt by this? Clinton? Kerry?
Clinton reportedly said they "all" knew about this for months and were "laughing about it"...If they took this so unseriously, why would they go to great lengths to keep it secret? Do you suppose the group who knew this was itsy bitsy?Clinton suggests the people in the know constituted more than one or two--"all" was what he said. Do you suppose no one in the group had personal animus against Berger? Wasn't in competition with him?
A number of people at the National Archives knew of this? How many people do you think they may have divulged this to?
People in the Prosecutors office (including support staff) knew of this.
Berger has been under investigation since October. He is the one person who controlled when this was made public, wasn't he? He could have made this public at any time..And the information comes out when? After the Commission completed its report when the members couldn't question him about the theft of classified records they had requested and when it apparently relied on some of his testimony. After Clinton testified in the presence of both Berger and Lindsey (both of whom were aware of the problem).Before the Democratic Convention when whatever press attention not directed at the Commission was likely to be directed at the Convention.
The story is not the timing. It is the outrageous conduct of the former NSC head, a man so high in the Kerry camp he was floated as a likely Secretary of State nominee if Kerry won. If the story were timing, the MSM have failed to show why it must have been the White House or what motive it would have for doing this now.
The NY Slimes spins more than my clothes dryer.
Nothing to see here. Move along and "Put it behind you".
The Old Grey Baglady must have not heard that Joe Wilson has been proven to be a lying sack of dog excrement.
The "punishment of Joe Wilson" is now completely discredited as well as Mr. Wilson himself. So who are these "same Congressional leaders"? I could've written this in grade school.
I'm gonna use that.
BRAVA ( BRAVO?)
That's the key point to this editorial. The stuff about Kerry having access to these memos is fluff, and inaccurate as well, or at least questionable inasmuch as nobody's said yet what the missing memos contained. One wonders how the Times is so certain of these things.
But the key point is the attempt to establish moral equivalency with a "leak" that the Times blusters no one has given any urgency to investigate. In fact, the two cases are unrelated and very different in composition and import. The impact of the CIA "leak" was nil; the impact of a member of Kerry's staff stealing compartmented information concerning an ongoing investigation of an incident the Dems are trying to use to unseat a President is likely to be quite another matter.
Yep, pretty blatant diversion. The story is about Berger, but they write more about Bush. Go figure.
Here is a warning to the New York Times:
You published an editorial and, presumably, within in minutes it appears on the internet and is published on FreeRepublic at 1:37:58 am.
By 2:10:21 am 16 Freepers had utterly shredded the logic and content of your editorial and exposed its bias.
Do you hear the clock ticking?
I think that when the nuts and bolts of this story start coming out there are many who are going to get burned.
My bet is those who blow the story off as no big deal are going to be sorry.
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