From today's
Daily Dish
THE NYT SPIN ON BERGER: Here's a strange discrepancy in the NYT's own account of Sandy Berger's illegal purloining of classified material from government archives. Here's one version:
- Republicans accused him on Tuesday of stashing the material in his clothing, but Mr. Breuer called that accusation "ridiculous" and politically inspired. He said the documents' removal was accidental.
Then later on in the piece, we read:
- Mr. Breuer, the lawyer, said Mr. Berger inadvertently put three or four versions of the report on the plots in a leather portfolio he had with him. "He had lots of papers, and the memos got caught up in the portfolio," he said. "It was an accident."
Mr. Berger also put in his jacket and pants pockets handwritten notes that he had made during his review of the documents, Mr. Breuer said.
So it's "ridiculous" to assert that he stuffed notes and copies of documents in his clothing, and yet he stashed them in his pants pockets and jacket. Is the critical issue here whether he stuffed them down his underpants or socks? If so, I can't wait for the fruits of the loom, I mean, inquiry.
WHY? The salient question - and we have yet to have an even faintly plausible answer - is why? What was the purpose of stashing document copies that were allegedly available elsewhere? How could such a thing be "inadvertent"? Why is such an accomplished Washington player unable to come up with a reasonable explanation for such bizarre behavior?
The Washington Post reports this morning that a government official with knowledge of the probe said Berger removed from archives files all five or six drafts of a critique of the government's response to the millennium terrorism threat, which he said was classified "codeword," the government's highest level of document security.
All the drafts? And now they're missing? Doesn't that sound like trying to cover your back? And yet the 9/11 Commission has not complained that it lacked any important documents; and the originals are still in the archives. I still don't get it. My best bet is that Berger was engaging in advance damage control - saving the drafts to help concoct a better defense of his tenure. If so, it's classic Clinton era sleaze - not exactly terrible but cheesy subordination of national security for partisan political advantage. But at times like this, I sure am glad we have the blogosphere. Can you imagine the mainstream press really pursuing this story alone? Meanwhile, Clinton thinks the possible leaking of classified information is just hilarious. About as hilarious as his anti-terror policy.
