Los Angeles Times
July 22, 2004
There is not much to rue about the departure of Clinton-era national security
advisor Sandy Berger from his unpaid, informal advisory role in John Kerry's
campaign. Berger has always been a plodder, unimaginative but diligent. Only
now has he become interesting, as his apparent mishandling of classified
documents on terrorism from the National Archives has GOP leaders smelling
blood. "What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of
experience … would risk being caught pilfering our nation's most sensitive
secrets," demanded House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. Majority Leader Tom DeLay
warned that "it could be a national security crisis."
Slow down, guys.
Berger, who admits he made an "honest mistake," is guilty of taking copies and
handwritten notes (that too is a serious violation of the rules) but not
original documents. He's returned most of them to the National Archives but
says some are missing or discarded. His conduct is inexcusable. But
traitorous? Before rushing to judg ment, everyone should remember that the
Justice Department is investigating and has yet to come to any firm conclusions.
Maybe it never will.
Indeed, it's striking that Berger's accusers have
yet to supply a motive for his actions. Do Hastert and DeLay believe that
Berger would take that kind of risk to "assist" the Kerry campaign? Or to cover
up a personal failure in confronting terrorism, because the documents were about
the foiled so-called Millennium terrorist plot, which occurred during his watch?
They don't say.
Anyway, the problem with such theories would be that
because the original documents remain in the National Archives, Berger would not
have been able to deny the 9/11 commission access to them. Any attempted
cover-up would not have covered anything up. Instead, he's now drawn attention
to the documents.
By contrast, the motives for whoever in the
administration leaked the Berger investigation appear clear enough. Like the
outing of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's w ife, Valerie Plame, as a
CIA agent, someone is sending up a smoke screen to deflect more serious charges.
By creating a brouhaha about Berger's actions, the leaker distracts attention
from any criticisms of President Bush and his administration in the independent
9/11 commission report.
The accusers' theories and winks hark to an
earlier staple of far-right discourse, the frequent claims of treasonous conduct
by President Clinton and his advisors, whether it was in dealing with terrorism
or China.
Berger has only himself to blame. He should have known from
experience that you don't get punished in Washington for policy mishaps like
mistakenly bombing a medical factory in Sudan, but for personal missteps. His
actions are so stupid that it would probably take a genius to explain
them.
We aren't hearing from the geniuses yet.