Berger's Top Secret BVDs - Kerry Caught in Security Flap
Charles R. Smith
Thursday, July 22, 2004
There is an old proverb that reads, <font color=blue>"Anything important should go in your pants."<font color=black> Unfortunately, former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger took this truism beyond its intended meaning.
Berger stands accused of stuffing his pants and socks with classified materials smuggled out of the National Achieves. Berger reportedly was examining a TOP SECRET - with code word - report on terrorism complied in the waning days of the Clinton administration.
Berger's mission was to assist Bill Clinton in his testimony before the 9/11 Commission by reviewing the documents. Instead, he now resembles a common shoplifter pirating CDs into his oversized pants on a cheap surveillance video camera.
Despite the denials by Berger and his attorney, Achieves staff caught the prominent advisor taking highly classified materials not once but twice. The second time the FBI got involved, searching Berger's home and office.
Berger has been under investigation since January for the strange actions. <font size=4>Democrats, trying to deflect the real issue of a major security breach by a major party figure, claim that this is all a Republican conspiracy since word of the investigation leaked just before the 9/11 report was to be issued.<font size=3>
Clinton Knew of Berger Bungle
Ironically, it appears that the news that Berger was being investigated leaked much earlier and not to a leading Republican figure.<font size=3>
According an interview given to the Denver Post, former President Bill Clinton said he has known about the federal probe of Berger's actions for several months, calling this week's news a <font color=blue>"nonstory."
"We were all laughing about it on the way over here,"<font color=black> stated Clinton at a book signing in Denver.
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"I wish I knew who leaked it. It's interesting timing,"<font color=black> said Clinton. While Democrats may be pointing the finger at the too-frequently accused target of the <font color=blue>"Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"<font color=black> for the Berger leak - they managed to avoid certain obvious facts.
Clinton knew that Berger was under investigation. Yet, no one told current Presidential hopeful John Kerry. The news that Kerry's top <font color=blue>"unpaid"<font color=black> foreign policy advisor was being investigated for stuffing his BVD's with classified documents hit the candidate like a ton of dirty socks.
The Kerry camp cut Berger barely 24 hours into the scandal. The error in judgment has clearly cost the Kerry campaign, raising many questions about the Senator's ability to bring loyal staff into his camp.
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Why Didn't Kerry Know?
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It is a fact that Berger obviously knew he was being investigated. The FBI agents crawling all over his office was certainly a clue. Why not resign from the Kerry camp months before any story could possibly hit, therefore disconnecting the issue from Kerry?
There is no question that President Clinton certainly knew and the <font color=blue>"open-mouth-insert-foot"<font color=black> former President was happy to admit it. The fact that Berger was assisting Clinton in his 9/11 testimony by going to the National Achieves in the first place is a clue that he was talking to Berger.
Why didn't Clinton pass the information along to the Kerry camp months before any story could possibly hit, therefore disconnecting the issue from Kerry?
Topping the question of why not tell Kerry is an even more obvious clue. What possible political or personal mission could be served by Clinton not telling Kerry about the investigation?
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What Did Kerry Know?
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According to the latest news, some parts of the classified report are still missing. This brings on a second and larger problem of how much of this classified report may have been leaked to Kerry himself. It is quite possible that the Kerry campaign may face a visit from the FBI, asking some interesting questions.
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Kerry introduced his new anti-terror policy just days after Berger filled his socks at the National Achieves. One has to wonder where these brilliant ideas originated.
Take for example the fact that the Kerry camp has suddenly removed its set of talking points on "Kerry's plan to fight the war on terror" from its internet site. Why now when the 9/11 report is being issued? It would seem that now is exactly the right time to trumpet these ideas for fighting Osama and company.
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Clinton Classified Comedy
All of this political comedy reminds me - a leading member of the vast right wing conspiracy - of the Clinton days in office. The mishandling misadventures of the boy-turned-president are enough to make any eye glaze over and roll up in the back of the head.
All too often secret materials would turn up lost or stolen and nothing ever happened. Clinton pardoned his former CIA chief John Deutch after top-secret documents were found on his home computer. Never mind the porno also found on Deutch's computer, which he blamed on his teenage kid.
Ira Sockowitz, a co-worker of John Huang, marched out the Commerce Dept. with over 2,000 pages of classified materials and no one asked him to stop. Sockowitz, who left right after Ron Brown died, took these highly classified materials and stored them in his personal safe at his new work site in the Small Business Administration.
The list of items taken by Sockowitz included details of satellite sales to China, secret encryption files from the NSA and uranium deals with Russia. Sockowitz was never charged. In fact, no one in the FBI or Justice Dept. ever even interviewed Sockowitz.
Then there were the 500 FBI files, including the file of former CIA Director Bob Gates, that landed inside the Clinton White House and the missing Whitewater files that disappeared down a wormhole in the D.C. universe, then somehow materialized again inside Hillary's reading room.
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Even Clinton's selection of Sandy Berger for National Security Advisor was curious since Berger served as a paid lobbyist for the Chinese communist government prior to taking the White House job offer.
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It is no surprise that Bill Clinton considers this most recent episode of classified comedy something to laugh about. Clinton never took the job seriously anyway. During Clinton's years in office, hardly a day passed without something or someone turned up violating national security.
The strange case of Sandy Berger, former National Security Advisor to Bill Clinton and foreign policy advisor to John Kerry, appears to be a weird comedy skit.
However, to those of us who followed the sad tales of security screw-ups inside the Clinton White House the Berger story is pretty standard fare.
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