Nutjobs Ranting About Politics.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Ty, you forget that the Clintons have a history of cutting the cord from prior FOB's once they get into the slightest trouble. Honed survival techniques to a new art.

Get real. It's not like they found Berger dead in a park or anything.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Ty, you forget that the Clintons have a history of cutting the cord from prior FOB's once they get into the slightest trouble. Honed survival techniques to a new art.

Which is why Clinton was publicly defending Berger a day or two ago? Oh, right, that's just his duplicity. Once you guys start with the Clinton conspiracy theories, any twist can be explained.

What does leaking it before Condi's testimony do? Remember, the GOP was already on the ropes at that time because of Clarke's one-sided testimony.

It gets it lost. You're arguing contradictory ideas: (a) they did it because it hurts the GOP, and (b) they did it now instead of having it come out in October. If it was really hurting the GOP, they'd have waited 'til October. (And you wouldn't see all these GOP legislators (David, Santorum, Hastert, etc.) piling on the story by attacking Berger -- they'd be shutting up to be done with it.) And if Berger leaked to get it out sooner rather than later, why now and not months ago?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
So Clinton had his own former National Security Advisor torched? Yeah, that makes sense. From what I've read, there weren't a lot of people in the Clinton White House closer to Bill on a personal level than Berger.

I just wanted an opportunity to Clinton bash. I haven't met my quota for the quarter yet, and they get real mad when you come in below budget.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I just wanted an opportunity to Clinton bash. I haven't met my quota for the quarter yet, and they get real mad when you come in below budget.

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.

[SlaveNoMore]

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.

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

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
It gets it lost. You're arguing contradictory ideas: (a) they did it because it hurts the GOP, and (b) they did it now instead of having it come out in October. If it was really hurting the GOP, they'd have waited 'til October. (And you wouldn't see all these GOP legislators (David, Santorum, Hastert, etc.) piling on the story by attacking Berger -- they'd be shutting up to be done with it.) And if Berger leaked to get it out sooner rather than later, why now and not months ago?

Flip it. How does this HELP the GOP. If they wait until you see Sandy with John/John at some photo-ops in Boston, then they drop the bomb and it makes the Kerry team look corrupt.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Flip it. How does this HELP the GOP. If they wait until you see Sandy with John/John at some photo-ops in Boston, then they drop the bomb and it makes the Kerry team look corrupt.

Distraction from the 9/11 report.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Distraction from the 9/11 report.

Wrong. It helps them because, right or wrong, the country trusts republicans more than democrats on foreign policy issues. This is basically a "if you want more of this, go ahead and vote for Kerry" message.

[Skeks in the city]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
It doesn't particularly matter to this discussion what the Palestinians want. If Israel cared about that enough to change, it wouldn't need a wall at all. What matters to border-drawing is international recognition of the border's legitimacy. Whomever loses the battle for international recognition of its borders, loses the land. Force is only one component of the equation.

No, what the Pali's want does matter. There can't be peace until enough of there's a deal backed by enough Israeli's and Pali's to supress extremists on both sides. The world will agree to whatever the Israeli's and the Pali's agree to. Legitimacy flows from agreement between the parties. The parties won't agree to a proposed settlement simply because the world blesses it.

Settlement between the parties, however, is impossible given that the world won't permit Israel to genocide or deport the Pali's. So, Israel will face a neverending insurrection. If the Israeli's don't want to flee Israel, their only recourse is building a wall to keep out the Pali's.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
Distraction from the 9/11 report.

But by accounts, the Bush administration [and Clinton's for that matter] came out unscathed.

And they knew this ahead of time, since they had the report ahed of time.

So why the need for a distraction?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
But by accounts, the Bush administration [and Clinton's for that matter] came out unscathed.

And they knew this ahead of time, since they had the report ahed of time.

So why the need for a distraction?

There is something to what club says, especially from the GOP (leakor) perspective.

But bringing 9/11 back to the news only hurt Bush. It might be neutral if he were running against Clinton, but he's not -- he's running against Kerry, and the commission report will surely have stuff in it about things the administration could have done before 9/11.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Skeks in the city
No, what the Pali's want does matter. There can't be peace until enough of there's a deal backed by enough Israeli's and Pali's to supress extremists on both sides. The world will agree to whatever the Israeli's and the Pali's agree to. Legitimacy flows from agreement between the parties. The parties won't agree to a proposed settlement simply because the world blesses it.

Settlement between the parties, however, is impossible given that the world won't permit Israel to genocide or deport the Pali's. So, Israel will face a neverending insurrection. If the Israeli's don't want to flee Israel, their only recourse is building a wall to keep out the Pali's.

That's entirely circular. We started with the proposition that Israel can build its walls on the pre-1967 borders, but that it overreaches by including more. You said the Palis will fight to the death no matter where the wall is, so why not? I say, hmm, that means it's a non-factor to their security, and to boot it's illegitimate on the international stage because no one recognizes it as the proper border. Now you're saying that international legitimacy matters only to the extent the Palis agree, which they won't. Doesn't that put us back at the "pre-1967 borders" point?

All in all, it makes it look like Israel is seizing on the sympathy it gets in moderate quarters by being a repeated terrorist target to justify what would otherwise be unjustifiable to moderates, all while saying that the precise location of the wall is a total non-factor to Pali terrorism. Whaa? Why not build the wall where it would have grudging international legitimacy?

[Skeks in the city]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Why not build the wall where it would have grudging international legitimacy?

Because the US is Israel's patron, and the borders that the US will grudgingly tolerate are outside those the UN will grudgingly tolerate.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
factor to Pali terrorism. Whaa? Why not build the wall where it would have grudging international legitimacy?

Israel has no intention of going back to those borders. It will pull back many of the current settlements, but not all. Call it just comp for 40 years of terror.

[Skeks in the city]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Israel has no intention of going back to those borders. It will pull back many of the current settlements, but not all. Call it just comp for 40 years of terror.

That may not be true. But even if Israel were willing to accept the 1967 borders, Israel retains a bargaining chip by retaining land outside those borders. That way, Israel retains land it can trade for a truce.