[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"OK, boys and girls, what's wrong with this picture, if one assumes that the intruder's goal was to suppress the manuscript?"

There is likely an agenda other than suppression at work.

These people are smart enough to know that people have backups of their manuscripts and disk drives, they send drafts to their editors, and so on. Suppression might not be possible.

No, it might just be that the burglars' gambit is to find out what's in the manuscript so it can be pre-empted in important ways. For example, the Clinton machine managed to discredit Gary Aldrich's entire book in the media by finding a single error in it; you can bet someone's going over the purloined manuscript with a magnifying glass right now. Or they could threaten or grease the palms of one or two folks quoted in Willey's account so that they are primed to claim she misquoted them or lied in some way. Or they'll trace (or fabricate) a financial or romantic linkage between Willey and some of the other players in order to establish a "sordid agenda" that can be spotlighted in the media. Or they'll connect her or her other witnesses to "discredited Clinton-haters and politically-driven Swift-Boat types" so that they can dismiss it all as old and stale, and "isn't it time these people move on?"

Just watch. There are dozens of ways of inoculating the Clintons against serious charges (again), and all can benefit from foreknowledge of what her book will say.

It's called getting their ducks in a row, and the Clintons are very very good at it.

[Smedley]

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. This was an information finding thing (if it did occur).

[wideawake]

No, it might just be that the burglars' gambit is to find out what's in the manuscript so it can be pre-empted in important ways.

Perhaps, but why not take the laptop as well? It would be a potential gold mine of opposition research.

[Yaelle]

It's called getting their ducks in a row, and the Clintons are very very good at it.

Damn straight. I believe their duck-lining was demonstrated by Robert de Niro with a baseball bat in the film "The Untouchables."