http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowArticle.asp?id=jordans&date=040721
Berger’s Bonfire
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Berger’s record of inattention and malfeasance--and, yes, "sloppiness"--is unshreddable.
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"[Lindsey's] nicknames have run the gamut from "the Enforcer" to "the Consigliere," the Sicilian word for a trusted counsel to a Mafia chieftain." --Time Magazine, March 23 1998 [1]
The astonishing admission of Samuel “Sandy” Berger, Bill Clinton’s longtime National Security Advisor, that he stuffed “code-word”-class secret documents into his pants, sneaked them out of a secure review room at the National Archives and “inadvertently” destroyed them is highly disquieting to those familiar with Berger’s background and activities in the Clinton Administration.
In particular, the Washington Post reports [2] that Berger purloined all draft revisions of a key critique of the government's response to the millennium terrorism threat, a document that detailed Administration knowledge – and inaction – regarding al Qaeda presence in the U.S. in 1999 and 2000. Stolen were crucial notes in the margins of these drafts which reveal the thinking and agendas of the Clinton Administration relating to the mounting terrorist threat.
Cui bono? And when the losses were discovered, why did the Archives staff notify Bruce Lindsey? Lindsey, whom Time Magazine called Clinton’s consigliere, is the brilliant legal tactician both Clintons can thank for their continued freedom.
Berger has an impressive resume, but not one that obviously qualified him as NSA. He entered White House service a millionaire lawyer and lobbyist with a career centered on expanding trade with China [3]. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh opined that “he was a public-relations hack, interested in how something would play in the press” [4]. Indeed, Clinton’s brilliant poll-meister, Dick Morris, noted Berger “seemed to work overtime at opposing tough measures against terror” [5], advising vetoes of legislation aimed at crippling Iranian terror funding and working to block antiterror sanctions. It was Berger who repeatedly rebuffed Sudanese offers to hand Osama bin Laden to the United States in a deal brokered by a $900,000 contributor to Democrat campaigns [6,7]. It was Berger who allowed bin Laden and his top lieutenants to escape to Afghanistan [8]. It was Berger whose calls Bill Clinton ducked in 1998 when bin Laden was briefly vulnerable to missile attack [9]. It was Berger who was singled-out by former UN Inspector Scott Ritter for the collapse of UN inspections efforts in Iraq [10]. It was Berger who helped broker the farcical antinuclear treaty with North Korea. It was Berger who ultimately admitted that the Clinton Administration had failed to develop a war plan to fight al Qaeda [11].
At the same time, it was Berger who was the go-to man in the Administration on matters regarding China policy in the years when Communist Chinese money was being funneled into Democrat Party coffers in exchange for policy concessions and strategic nuclear technology. It was Berger whom DNC Chairman Don Fowler approached for favors for George Chao-chi Chu, a Chinagate-linked John Huang crony described as having "unusual access to high-ranking Communist officials in China" who, like the just-exited chief-foreign-policy-advisor Berger, has current ties to John Kerry [12]. And it was Berger who the Energy Department approached with warnings of Chinese spying in Los Alamos, and who stonewalled the matter for three years [13].
The list goes on and on [14]: Berger was not just the malfeasant, poll-driven, cowardly hack at the helm of our national security apparatus who enabled the global metastasis of bloodthirsty jihad; he was not just one of the key people who roadblocked cooperation between law enforcement and foreign intelligence, stacking “Gorelick’s Wall” ever higher. In fact, as bagman for the Communist Chinese, Sandy Berger was himself likely one of the key beneficiaries of Gorelick’s Wall.
Viewed against his record, Berger’s theft and destruction of “code-word”-level secret documents – and “The Consigliere’s” stealthy involvement – is all too readily understood.
Scott Jordan