SANDY BERGER: "Yes, Down My Pants. Oh, Like You Haven't?"

American Digest ^ | March 31, 2005 | Vanderleun

[vanderleun]

[Note: In honor of the plea copped -- Sandy Berger to plead guilty on documents charge -- for stuffing secret documents down his pants and waddling out of the National Archives, I am bringing back this little memoir of my pants-stuffing youth from last July 20]

AS A TEENAGER MY ADDICTION TO SCIENCE FICTION PAPERBACKS often came into conflict with my ongoing cash-flow problem. To wit, I hadn't any. But, for a few brief, shining weeks I did discover a resource better than cash for acquiring science-fiction paperbacks -- my pants.

Yes, at some point it dawned on my tiny teenage brain that, if I could just get these piles of paper down the front of my pants and walk without a waddle out the door of the store, the latest Asimov or Heinlein would be free. What was even better was my discovery that I could, after reading these stolen gems, take them back to the bookstore from which I boosted them and sell them back to that dull owner for a credit to buy other paperbacks. Cost of stock: $0, Price received: $0.25, Profit -- infinite. What a business! I was a confirmed capitalist. I even thought of a name for my company, World Wide Pants, and was quite upset years later when David Letterman stole it from me.

Of course I knew on some level that stuffing things down my pants, waddling out of a store and then coming back later to sell the purloined items back was .... a teeny bit wrong. But the bookstore owner had so many science fiction books and I had so few. "From bookstores according to their stock, to me according to my need to read," seemed to be my moral code at the time. Besides, I wasn't "really" stealing them because I "returned" them for a fee. It was a way of letting the bookstore owner sort of reverse-rent them to me.

I started small -- maybe a slim collection of short stories like "The Green Hills of Earth," or a novella such as "Children of the Atom," would find their way to their temporary home between my belt and my underwear. But then I decided to expand. After all, it seemed to me that my pants had room to spare especially if I let my shirt tails hang out. Once that was in my mind, I started to up the ante and began to go for multiple copies of Ace Doubles. My pants became, in effect, a small bookshelf.

The owner of the bookstore down in the slums of Sacramento was, I was certain, clueless as to what was going on. He was a thin version of William Burroughs with the gray haze of alcohol hovering about him and a tendency to give me a smile that was a little too warm whenever I came into the shop. He'd often disappear into a curtained nook with the sign "Special Titles -- Ask for admittance" thumbtacked to the bookshelf next to it.

My undoing came one day when I think I had probably added a full two inches to my waistline in the science fiction section. I waddled to the cash register with one tattered copy of some space opera and slid my quarter across the counter. He looked at it, looked at me, took the quarter and slid the book into a flimsy paper bag and handed it back. "See you soon," he said with a wink. I turned and had gotten out the door and a couple of steps down the sidewalk when the bony hand of retribution clutched my shoulder. " I see you're gaining a little weight," he said in a voice that betrayed an unhealthy interest in Lucky Strikes. "I think we need to talk to your parents about this. Come on back in."

There's no way to describe the churning, burning hunk of fear that forms in your stomach the first time you're busted. If, at that moment, you could chose between death and juju, death would win every time -- but only because you don't know that you'll get death only after juju.

He frogmarched me back in. He called my mother. She came down, and, with her on the scene, I was forced to disgorge the contents of my pants -- about six paperbacks from around the waist and down the back of the butt, not counting the one that had slid down into my right cuff. It was a terrible moment, a humiliating moment, as I drew one after the other pack of paper out of my pants. But humiliation was to turn to terror.

It got worse because, after my mother had stood there to witness my degradation, she looked into my eyes and spoke the words any child hates most to hear in this world: "Well, we will have to have a very serious talk about this. We'll start right after your father gets home."

"...Right after your father gets home." In that era any sane kid's first thought after hearing those words was to wonder if he still has time to kill himself before that moment rolled around. You see, in those distant days, the fathers were at work and the mothers were at home, and when the fathers came home from work they were likely to be just a wee bit cranky from "the job." Hence, their mood was always going to hover somewhere between mildly irritated and homicidal, depending on what had happened at the office and in the bar car after work.

During the hours I waited in my room for my father's arrival and judgment, I went over all the possible defenses I could muster for stealing the precious science-fiction documents and stuffing them down my pants. But I was drilling a dry hole. I didn't have any. But that was only because I was a filcher ahead of my time. That was only because my government at that time had not supplied me with role models like Clintonista-Kerryite Sandy Berger who has, it would seem, purloined my filching technique and spent some days stuffing classified documents down his pants at the National Archives.

Yes, "down his pants." My old pioneering technique upgraded to today with the only improvement being that Berger probably wears suspenders and much, much bigger pants. If I could get seven Ace-Double paperbacks out of a bookstore, Berger could probably get entire filing cabinets out in his pants.

But what I really could have used was the slick explanation provided by Berger and his lawyer:

"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives," Berger told the AP. "When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had except for a few documents that I apparently had accidentally discarded," he said.

Now I have to say that for a man caught with a small library down his pants, that explanation is pure genius. If only I had read it at 14 I could have explained the whole thing to my father like this:

"In the course of reviewing some ripping science fiction yarns at the bookstore, pater, over several weeks I had to assimilate the stories in hundreds of books comprising thousands of pages of science fiction on behalf of the Encina High School administration in connection with requests by my teachers to read more for the good of America. While doing so, Dad -- most diligently and with a great attention to detail --I inadvertently took a few, and just a few compared to everything there, books from the booststore, er, bookstore, by inadvertently allowing them to jump into my pants," Van der Leun told his stern parental unit.

"When I was informed by the book store owner that there were seven books in my pants, I immediately returned everything I had in my pants, except for a few dozen books that I apparently had accidentally discarded over several weeks on the bookshelves of my room," he said.

"Inadvertently." "Apparently." "Accidentally." If only I had known these phrases that pay, I could have saved myself, as no doubt Sandy Berger will now attempt to save himself, from the label of "thief."

Would it have worked with my father? Nope. Not for a nanosecond. Will it work with the Washington Post and the New York Times? Well, the Post left the pants bit out of its report this morning, so it is plain to see they're working on it. Perhaps that the new ethic of journalism is that when you get a story that doesn't map to your internal major media myth, you just take the facts that don't fit and, well, stuff them down your pants and head for the door.

It didn't work for me. I spent the rest of the summer working Saturdays in that book store for free. But hey, I wasn't a National Security Advisor for the Clinton White House and the John Kerry campaign, nor a reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper. Those guys probably have some sort of Trousergate immunity deal going.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Funny, but Berger's daddy in this case is a judge and as a lawyer he know very well what to worry about.

[woofie]

I blame the pants...I had some just like em ...ya put them on and wham you are in deep sh%&

[Diogenesis]

All Democrats are above the law. American Justice is JUST-THEM.

Question of the Day

=============================

Who is stupider. Pick One (1)

1) The Israelis trusting the Palestinians and Islam

2) Terri Shiavo's supporters trusting Judgenfuhrer Greer and the Florida Judiciary

3) Americans waiting for the US Justice Dept to catch and deliver justice to
a) She/he who admitted to stealing 950 FBI files
b) Whitey Bulger
c) Sandy Berger-Burglar

---

"WELCOME TO THE REAL AMERICA WHERE CRIMINALS GET TO BE
CELEBRITIES AND CELEBRITIES GET AWAY WITH MURDER."

[Peach]

I'd bet everything I own that if I stole confidential documents from the National Archives, I wouldn't get a misdemeanor slapped on me.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I can't remember who said it, but when this story first broke it was observed that most of the scandals of Clinton and his cronies involved pants.

[freecopper01]

I thought it was satire - at first. It did dawn on me after a few paragraphs that he was serious!

But his parents were acquainted with a few subjects Berger et al don't know: justice, discipline, punishment and restitution.

[Uncle George]

FLASHBACK: Anyone remember the president of the National Baseball Umpires Union who a few years ago was caught with a handfull of BASEBALL CARDS, he had walked out of a shop without paying? Well he was stripped of everything but his life. But baseball cards are different than National Secret Documents.

[Pittsburg Phil]

This pig belongs in prison.

[Enterprise]

"This pig belongs in prison. "

[nuconvert]

lol
Good. Thanx

[doug from upland]

Bringing this one back.

[harrowup]

...depending on what had happened at the office and in the bar car after work.

Sacramento had commuter rail in the 50's? Amazing.

[Lancey Howard]

Doug, did you see this post #58 (on a recent thread)?

[doug from upland]

THANKS!