Worse than Watergate

Worse than Watergate -- But Invisible in the Media By Alan Nathan FrontPageMagazine.com | January 5, 2007

President Clinton’s Former National Security Advisor was caught stealing and destroying classified documents from the National Archives (before the 9/11 Commission could read them), but his actions have garnered less media attention than a fly breaking wind.

Sandy Berger illegally removed four documents, hid them under a construction trailer for later retrieval, then cut three of the four with scissors upon returning to his office. He admitted to lying about it when first questioned by their officials, according to a December 20, 2006, report by Inspector General Paul Brachfeld.

We already knew that in September of 2005, Berger was sentenced to pay a $50,000 fine and complete 100 hours of community service for taking and destroying documents never meant to leave the Archives in October 2003. However, at the time of his plea bargain, much of this story was never reported, and most of us were unaware of just how premeditated had been his cloak and dagger exercises.

Well, now we know, but little of it is making the headlines or the airwaves. Why? Why is it that secret material failing to reach the 9/11 Commission never ignited explosions of press inquiry? He was chosen by Clinton to provide these after-action reports of the 2000 millennium terror plot to the Commission investigating the state of our intelligence on terror before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Wasn’t that beyond a conflict of interest? Why didn’t the Commission send someone not connected to the investigation?

And don’t embarrass yourself by even imagining that Berger, his attorney, and all of his apologists are to be taken seriously when they contend that the documents still exist in their entirety and were submitted to the Commission. As Virginia Republican Representative Tom Davis accurately pointed out when commenting to the Associated Press, “Working papers of National Security Council staff members are not inventoried by the Archives.” He added, “Consequently, there is no way to ever know if the 9/11 Commission received all required materials.”

Nobody on the Commission (or on the planet) can assert to have the full accounting of an original tally never known. Why?

This all screams the question, “Why has the media allocated so little focus on this?” The normal order of things would suggest that we learn from our predecessors. While that remains true for most professions, the same cannot be said of the journalism community.

When debating a judicial nominee’s state of neutrality, one requisite is paramount: Does he have a greater allegiance to his vocation than he does his politics? When judges are meeting such standards, then both the liberal and conservative judge shall rule far more similarly to one another than would two fellow liberals or two fellow conservatives not meeting that requisite.

The average reporter also once had a stronger loyalty to his craft than his biases – perhaps the path to the good old days is through the future, and current journalism majors can lead us back to excellence.

Today however, the media’s five-to-one ratio of liberals to conservatives (as was reported by the Pew Foundation in 2004) is having a deleterious impact on us all in that we’re only fully protected when the GOP commit the offense.

Don’t get me wrong, as a centrist I’m delighted with the media exposing Republican criminality. But why should citizens be more vulnerable to other charlatans simply because they are Democrats receiving less scrutiny from their brethren in the Fourth Estate?

Every once in a while a story of great magnitude arises in a way that provokes such little initial coverage that it effectively hides in plain sight. When this occurs, it’s either because the original news worthiness appears to be at a lower level of importance, or because those with direct and indirect vested interests have enough aggregate influence so as to play down the story in question.

The Watergate scandal is an example of the first; Sandy Berger removing and extinguishing protected records of national security exemplifies the second.

In the Watergate burglary fiasco that revealed President Nixon covering up his campaign’s attempt to steal papers from the Democrats, there were political operatives wielding their influence to conceal the event. Thankfully, those operatives were far outweighed by a press more interested in journalism than anyone else’s political agenda. Consequently, what was originally reported as a garden-variety breaking-and-entry would later be understood as a grotesque violation of public trust.

What happened to that kind of passionate investigative journalism? Sandy Berger stealing and destroying classified documents is a story with so many startling facts already in evidence, even the layman newshound should think to ask, “What else is being hidden and what are the motives?”

Why is robbing national security documents less important than robbing campaign documents?

"What did Sandy Berger know and when did he know it?"
Oops, wrong administration....
The one question that Hillary Clinton should be asked at every whistle stop on her campaign is "What is Sandy Berger hiding?" She claims her time as First-Lady as part of the experience that prepared her for the Senate, ergo Presidency. So, she was there when the deals were being done. What's he hiding?
If this was a Republican theft, Sandy Berger would be a resident of Ft. Leavenworth by now. This issue cannot be brought up enough because future national security could be riding on the very papers that he destroyed.
Did Bill make a deal with Bin Laden to protect the US during his watch? Was his administration aware of an airplane plot scenario and didn't tell the incoming Bush people? What is so important that this man had to risk his fortune and future to protect the Clintons?--MHT

Excellent! Excellent!

Conversely, did the clintons protect bin Laden because of the Nobel Peace Prize?

MISSING CLINTON AUDIO! 'Can we kill 'em tomorrow?'
(+Albright-Fulbright-Nobel TERRORISM revelations)

ALBRIGHT INDICTS CLINTON FOR TERRORISM FAILURE
(and doesn't even know it)

'KILL BILL'
THE CLINTON-FOLEY NEXUS: A THEORY part 1

We must nail missus clinton at every whistle stop, indeed. About this. About everything.

About the clintons' rape of Juanita Broaddrick. (Every once in a while a story of great magnitude arises in a way that provokes such little initial coverage that it effectively hides in plain sight. When this occurs, it's either because the original news worthiness appears to be at a lower level of importance, or because those with direct and indirect vested interests have enough aggregate influence so as to play down the story in question.)

HILLARY CLINTON THREATENED JUANITA BROADDRICK 2 WEEKS AFTER BILL CLINTON RAPED HER (VIDEO)

HILLARY ON THE COUCH: IS MISSUS CLINTON MENTALLY FIT?

This all screams the question, "Why has the media allocated so little focus on this?"

... The average reporter... once had a stronger loyalty to his craft than his biases -- perhaps the path to the good old days is through the future, and current journalism majors can lead us back to excellence.
Today however,

... [T]he media's five-to-one ratio of liberals to conservatives (as was reported by the Pew Foundation in 2004) is having a deleterious impact on us all in that we're only fully protected when the GOP commit the offense.
... Every once in a while a story of great magnitude arises in a way that provokes such little initial coverage that it effectively hides in plain sight. When this occurs, it's either because the original news worthiness appears to be at a lower level of importance, or because those with direct and indirect vested interests have enough aggregate influence so as to play down the story in question.
The Watergate scandal is an example of the first; Sandy Berger removing and extinguishing protected records of national security exemplifies the second.
... What happened to that kind of passionate investigative journalism? Sandy Berger stealing and destroying classified documents is a story with so many startling facts already in evidence, even the layman newshound should think to ask, "What else is being hidden and what are the motives?"
Why is robbing national security documents less important than robbing campaign documents?

Worse than Watergate
Front Page ^ | Jan 5, 2007 | Alan Nathan

"What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."

James Madison

When the founders granted 'The Press' special dispensation, they never considered the possibility that traitors in our midst would game the system. But that is precisely what is happening today. (Hate America? Support jihad? Become a 'journalist!')

This was bound to happen.

The premise behind the First Amendment as it applies to the press--that a vigilant watchdog is necessary, sufficient--indeed, possible--to protect against man's basest instincts--is tautologically flawed: The fox guarding the White House, if you will.

Walter Lippmann, the 20th-century American columnist, wrote, "A free press is not a privilege, but an organic necessity in a great society." True in theory. True even in Lippmann's quaint mid-20th-century America, perhaps. But patently false in this postmodern era of the bubbas and the Pinches.

When a free and great society is hijacked by a seditious bunch of dysfunctional, power-hungry malcontents and elitists, it will remain neither free nor great for long. When hijacked by them in the midst of asymmetric warfare, it will soon not remain at all.

If President George W. Bush is serious about winning the War on Terror, he will aggressively pursue the enemy in our midst.

Targeting and defeating the enemy in our midst is, by far, the more difficult task and will measure Bush's resolve and courage (and his independence from the MPRDC (mutual protection racket in DC)) more than any pretty speech, more even than 'staying the course.'

"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."

H. L. Mencken

IN A 'PINCH': RETHINKING THE FIRST AMENDMENT (Which came first, the 'journalist' or the traitor?)

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