Power Line News

Over at Pajamas Media Richard Miniter has posted the OIG Sandy Ber

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The Inspector General of the National Archives has just released a report on

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It is incredible that the media let this story drop.  Almost as incredible as the fact that Berger will some day be allowed to get his security clearance back again.

All it took was a giggly Bill Clinton saying to the cameras something like, “We all got a kick out of hearing this. Sandy is so absent minded, ya know”
Yeah, hiding documents under a dumpster for later retrieval, that sure is absent minded.

Ghost - 20 December 2006 06:16 PM

It is incredible that the media let this story drop.  Almost as incredible as the fact that Berger will some day be allowed to get his security clearance back again.

All it took was a giggly Bill Clinton saying to the cameras something like, “We all got a kick out of hearing this. Sandy is so absent minded, ya know”
Yeah, hiding documents under a dumpster for later retrieval, that sure is absent minded.

::cough::bias::cough

We will never know what what in those docs.

What we DO know is that whatever it was, it had the potential to scandalize Bill Clinton to the extent that he was motivated to blackmail Berger into risking his professional livelihood in order to destroy them. 

Now, Bill Clinton is a person who is not easily embarrassed.  The mind reels at what could have been revealed had the information in the docs ever been made public.

That should have given him the needed qualifications to be a member of the ISG.

Back is Berger, John advising;
Comes the camera! Suits to choose!
And, a paper trail is rising
Aaack! he must fill more than shoes!
Stops to eye the Zegna trouser;
”Silk-and-wool hangs, like a dream!
Stylish cut, as you’ll allow, sir
Either leg will hold a ream.”
Files in shirts and socks and trousers
Tell me sir, was there a hat?
Surely George needs better mousers,
‘Strewth! the bag was in the cat!

Berger is a world class slimeball, and if he were a republican half the nation and all the media would be calling for his head.

Can you imagine the HELL that would be raised if this had been Bush’s National Security Advisor.... Condi Rice???  It is INCREDIBLE that the MSM is not screaming about this.....  well, guess not.... it is what we’ve come to expect from the MSM..

consclipper

postBot - 20 December 2006 06:11 PM

The Inspector General of the National Archives has just released a report on

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From post…

It is intensely interesting to speculate on what have been in those documents that would lead a former National Security Adviser to hide them in his pants, secrete them under a construction trailer, and finally spirit them to his office, apparently so he could destroy them. This is, I suppose, a clue:

Berger, with the authorization of former President Clinton, was reviewing National Security Council documents on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, Sudan, and related presidential correspondence.
This news report does not explain why the IG’s report has just now been made public. We’ll have to see if we can track down a complete copy of the report.

This is one of the most disturbing acts I have ever seen by someone in government. How did he only get community service for this tells you about the privilege of being politically connected in the Left…

This kind of action should be unthinkable. Where is the Left crying out about leaders destroying history?

Because they never cared about dirty deeds and do not now…

They only care about politics and appearances… the appearance of standing for the right, the good, the true.

We are often fooled into believing that what the Left claims to stand for is what we do not stand for… through great postures of their own. However, ultimately, fooled or not, we follow these things and know how they pretend to be good, but are bad… even while they will debate the existance or permanence of “morality”.

This sends a very disturbing message to politicians… that you can do dirty deeds and get away with it, because even if you are caught doing something as severe as removing their presence from the highly restricted national archives… they won’t do anything to you.

I doubt he knew this going in, however. He was likely considering that he was risking real prison time to do this. So what were these documents that this suited genteel man would risk real prison time and his life’s work and reputation to do?

It has to be the worst, which does not surprise me.

We all know how the Left is ultimately for terrorism against the United States, the very country which represents all of the ideals they have pretensions of standing for but really hate.

Because, like Hitler and Stalin, their actions speak louder then words.

Just as they declared Rwanda “not a genocide” and refused to send in troops and even hampered the UN from intervening… so have they done with almost every despicable world happening ever to take place… from protesting aiding Britain in WWII, to supporting Stalin and Soviet Union, to siding with North Korea and the Viet Cong, to siding with the Taliban, Saddam and the Baathists, Pol Pot… and almost any other evil group that has ever existed and we have fought against.

Maybe these statements are not popular… but this is a perspective here, I think, people should think long and hard on.

It will take a while to write a detailed reply, but basically I always thought the opbvious reason Berger took the documents was in order to help prep Clinton to lie to the 9/11 commission.

Berger needed better access to the documents than what he had at the National Archives in order to do that. Also, while Clinton could have asked to see them himself, he didn’t want to leave too many clues.

The most important specific big lie Clinton was preparing to tell the 9/11 commission was that he had given orders to kill bin Laden - something nobody had ever dreamed that he had done. the reason for this lie was that Clinton’s policy in fact was the exact opposite - he most definitely dd not want to capture or kill bin Laden.

Now here is where the 9/11 commisison report deals with this:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.htm

Skip to:

<< Policymakers in the Clinton administration, including the President
and his national security advisor, told us that the President’s intent
regarding covert action against Bin Ladin was clear: he wanted him dead.
This intent was never well communicated or understood within the CIA.
Tenet told the Commission that except in one specific case (discussed
later), the CIA was authorized to kill Bin Ladin only in the context of
a capture operation. CIA senior managers, operators, and lawyers
confirmed this understanding. “We always talked about how much easier it
would have been to kill him,” a former chief of the Bin Ladin unit
said.

In February 1999, another draft Memorandum of Notification went to
President Clinton. It asked him to allow the CIA to give exactly the
same guidance to the Northern Alliance as had just been given to the
tribals: they could kill Bin Ladin if a successful capture operation was
not feasible. On this occasion, however, President Clinton crossed out
key language he had approved in December and inserted more ambiguous
language. No one we interviewed could shed light on why the President
did this. President Clinton told the Commission that he had no
recollection of why he rewrote the language.129

Later in 1999, when legal authority was needed for enlisting still other
collaborators and for covering a wider set of contingencies, the lawyers
returned to the language used in August 1998, which authorized force
only in the context of a capture operation.... >>

To sum it up: Clinton never went as far as a direct order or permission to kill bin Laden. Clinton did sign something close to it in December 1998, but then he took it back. He later lied about it to the 911 Commission by claiming he did
give orders to kill bin Laden. What he did do, he took back and later claimed he couldn’t remember why. And he probably never intended to harm bin Laden but rather to create a paper trail.

Anyone who holds a secret or top secret clearance as a member of the military would rightly expect to face a court martial and serve hard time for doing something like this.

If this guy regains his clearance and gets some job under a “President Hilary” it will make me barf.

Funny how differently the MSM treats Sandy Burgler vis a vis Scooter Libby. Clinton’s myriad sins are finally percolating to the surface, but Bush and the Republican Congress have provided cover. Why?

This Sandy Burger news reminds me of the Vince Foster case that was dropped by the MSM.  Any thing that the Clinton team members do is given a “pass” by the MSM.  If a Republican did this the roof would blow off the Capitol like in Scooter Libby’s trumped up trial. People see this and wonder why Hiliary in going to run for President. My God, how much more of this Clinton gang can the country take? Iron Hand

Ah, well.  At least it wasn’t erased from a tape recording.  That might have gotten somebody impeached.  I imagine the documents in question have been destroyed.

Ironic that an effort to avoid what is probably just an embarrassment has made Berger’s place in history, right along side the Watergate burglars and Nixon. 

What could be in them that would hurt him worse?  Anything criminal?  Any illegal intelligence operations mentioned?

This will finally have to get some play now.  Hiding documents under a trailer after stuffing them in his socks/underwear?  That is too juicy to be left alone.  Hopefully a blogswarm will envelop him like Dan Rather.

Democrats should be asked in public about this and put on the record their feelings of the theft and destruction of national security documents from the NSC.

This is so egregious, I can’t believe how easy he got off.