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"...The Berger associate authorized to speak with reporters described the chronology the former national security chief gave to the Justice Department in his negotiations with the Justice Department. On Sept. 2, 2003, the associate said, Berger put a copy of the Clarke report in his suit jacket. He did not put it in his socks or underwear, as was alleged by some Republicans last summer. On Oct. 2, 2003, he again spent hours at the archives and took four more versions of the document. Back in his office, he studied them in detail, realized they were largely identical, and took the scissors to three of the copies, the associate said...."

Another reason Berger's spokesman is slick - see how he puts the "socks" issue on the first document, but doesn't state how the later documents were pilfered.

That's very confident. Part of the agreement must be that the govt. won't talk and Berger gets to spin the story without contradiction.

Final point: Scissors? Wouldn't a former intelligence official have a shredder? Sheesh.

I noticed the parsing of the socks not being involved in the first episode, too, while the other date did not get the denial.

Notice our reporter here jumps as high as the lawyer instructs with his dutiful "as was alleged by some Republicans" line.

I believe anyone who alleged such did it based on media reports.

"Final point: Scissors? Wouldn't a former intelligence official have a shredder? Sheesh."

The spin is designed to get you to envision that he chopped up the entire document, when what Berger did was cut out the damaging notes in the margins; later he decided not to return those 3 versions at all.

"Back in his office, he studied them in detail, realized they were largely identical, and took the scissors to three of the copies, the associate said....""

LARGELY IDENTICAL???!!!!!

They were not merely copies, but were varying drafts. Obviously, there were embarassing truths that made it into certain drafts that were taken out in later drafts, and Socks did not want those embarrassing points to to be seen by others who saw these super-secret docs, or did not want others to see what was eventually removed in later drafts.