Quote:
Tyrone Slothrop
Here's one that'll score you points with them. Clinton heard that Berger and the Kerry people were going to leak this in October to screw Bush with it just before the election, and--although it meant betraying his pal Berger--he leaked it this week to screw up that plans help Bush beat Kerry, to set Hillary up for 2008. It's completely insane -- they'll love it.
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Here's Marty Peretz' take:
I confess: I do not like Sandy Berger; and I have not liked him since the first time we met, long ago during the McGovern campaign, not because of his politics since I more or less shared them then, but for his hauteur. He clearly still has McGovernite politics, which means, in my mind, at least, that he believes there is no international dispute that can't be solved by the U.S. walking away from it. No matter. Still, here's his story about the filched classified materials dealing with the foiled Al Qaeda millennium terrorist bombing plot from the National Archives: He inadvertently took home documents and notes about documents that he was not permitted to take from the archives; secondly, he inadvertently didn't notice the papers in his possession when he got home and actually looked at them; and, thirdly, he inadvertently discarded some of these same files so that they are now missing. Gone, in fact. One of his lawyers attributes this behavior to "sloppiness," which may better explain his career as Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser and certainly describes his presentation of self in everyday life. But it is not an explanation of his conduct in the archives or, for that matter, at home. Personnel at the archives actually noticed him stuffing his pockets with papers as he left, which is how the FBI found out about this bizarre tale in the first place. Inadvertence, then, doesn't do it either. Maybe Sandy wanted souvenirs from his career in the White House that was punctuated by so many catastrophes for the United States. Nonetheless, he has had ambitions tied to John Kerry's, ambitions that clash with those of Richard Holbrooke and Joe Biden, who decisively do not have McGovernite politics. But Berger did run the Kerry foreign policy team at the writing of the Democratic Party platform a few weeks ago (when the only opposition, easily pacified, came from a handful of Dennis Kucinich loyalists) and has been deeply involved in crafting how the candidate presents himself on these issues. So my question is: Did Berger, who knew that he was under scrutiny since last fall, alert Kerry to the combustible fact that he was the subject of a criminal probe by the Justice Department and the FBI? My guess is not. Kerry is far too smart, too responsible to have kept him around had he known. But if Kerry didn't know, it tells you a lot about Berger, too much, really. A more important question, of course, is: What was contained in the papers that Berger snatched? The answer to that question might answer another. Maybe Clinton's top national security aide didn't want others to see what they documented.
Postscript, July 22
The Kerry campaign has accused the White House of having leaked Sandy Berger's troubles to the press, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it did. As The New York Times pointed out today (July 22), however, this would not at all have been illegal or even unusual. It smells nonetheless. But most recent news answers another question that I asked yesterday: Did John Kerry know that Berger was under investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department? As I surmised, neither Kerry nor his staff was at all "witty," as it is called in the intelligence trade, and they were caught completely off guard. Kerry was probably rip-shit. Nonetheless, he issued a gentlemanly, even statesmanlike, comment saying, "Sandy Berger is my friend, and he has tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction. I respect his decision to step aside as an adviser to the campaign..." But Berger's behavior in clinging to his role as Kerry's foreign policy guru shows that he is anything but a friend. Hoping that the disgrace of pilfering from the National Archives what were actually documents with the very highest security coding would somehow pass unnoticed in public, Berger was even willing to put his candidate at risk. This is a distinction of sorts. But it is not at all honorable
Martin Peretz is Editor-in-Chief of The New Republic
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=peretz072104
