WKYT [1] is adding their voice to this Beger business:
“WASHINGTON Political veteran David Gergen says former national security adviser Sandy Berger ‘would never do anything to compromise’ U-S security.”
Oh, really? Tell me; Might he do something to protect his current and former bosses, or, for that matter, himself?
Newsmax [2] points out this morning that this isn’t the first time he’s had to do some fnacy footwork:
In September 2002, he flatly denied during sworn congressional testimony that the government of Sudan had ever offered to turn over Osama bin Laden to his boss, Bill Clinton.
It gets better. Says Newsmax, in part:
“…Berger had a tougher time a few months later during an interview with WABC Radio’s Steve Malzberg, who grilled him on Clinton’s February 2002 admission that the Sudanese offer was indeed real.”
…
“I’ve seen [Clinton’s] quote,” he told Malzberg. “And I think at the time there was some examination of whether or not he could be held here if, in fact, we had an opportunity to get him. And the judgment was that we didn’t have any basis to hold him here at that time.”
But Berger insisted that the Clinton administration’s conclusion that it couldn’t detain bin Laden “was not pursuant to an offer by the Sudanese.”
“The Sudanese never offered to give him to the United States,” he insisted. “This is something I’ve gone back to check very carefully on. No one knows of any such offer.”
Now; What would the chances be, do you suppose, of the documents in question being ones regardsing the offer from the Sudanese that supposedly never happened?
Another speculation I’ve seen floated; Is this Hillary in action?
Remember; Hillary wants to run for Presdent. If Kerry by some extremely bad luck for America, manages to get elected, Hillary can’t run in ’08, and will likely NEVER get a shot at the presidency. Can this be aimed at tarring Kerry with a conspiracy brush?
It’s an interesting thought, nearly on par with simply criminal cover-up attempts on the part of former Clinton staffers…but it seems either way, Kerry’s got serious credibility issues.
Issues, which of course the so-called mainstream newspapers aren’t touching. CNN ignored the story on their air today, and on their web site. Can you imagine this story not getting ‘wall to wall’ coverage, if this were a Republican? I can’t.
Boortz notes this point [3]this morning, too.
What if it had been Bill Frist, or Tom Delay or some other Republican that had done this. It would be the top story of every newscast, the Democrats would be calling for that person’s arrest and screaming for an independent counsel. The media would be polling the public….”do you think Republicans are trying to hide something when they steal classified documents?” There would be no presumption of innocence, there would be no waiting for the investigation to be completed before passing judgment.
Boortz is willing to accept that there may be an explaination for all of this that is far more innocent. I’m not. I mean, comon, Neal… you really think with this guy’s record, this is the act of an innocent?
I’m willing to give the Democrats exactly as much leeway as they gave THEiR opponants. And given the history of the lies and coverups of Democrats these last 20 years, and given what’s riding on this, for everone involved, it’s the only reasonable way to proceed.
Allow me to be the first to say this;
I want this guy dragged up before the 9/11 commission, since this clearly is in their purvue. I want an independant council investitating this one. What was in the missing documents? Who did it expose? How much did John Kerry know about this? Would the info in those documents swing public opinion against the Democrats, and therefore was this theft an attempt to swing the election by less than honest means?
These are questions that need answers.
Finally, Chris Muir makes note of this in his strip, called “Day By Day” [4] this morning.
Great stuff.
But not, to my mind, as great as seeing Josh Marshall go into denial [5]. (In fairness, Marshall, to his credi,t is the only lefty blogger I’ve seen to even make mention of Berger). Says Marshall:
“The whole thing seems almost inexplicable.”
Well, that’s just it, Josh, it’s VERY understandable. Indeed, the only way it’s inexplicable is if you take on faith that Berger, and the rest of the Clinton Democrats have never dealt in “nefarious” activity.
How about geting into reality with the rest of us, Josh?
Update:
Interesting that as of this writing, neither the White House, nor the Kerry summer camp has actually responded to this story. Mostly, this is because they feel no pressure from the “news” people. Yet.
The Kerry workers are I would guess, particularly working in a fever trying to figure how to spin this one. It’s not really in the papers, (they’re just getting around to it) and not on the tube, save for FNC. However, a couple insiders have suggested it’ll be all over all of them by tonight. After all, the AP didn’t release the story until *after* the Evening News pushes last night. since then, the NYT,NYP, WaPo, and USAT all have back chatter stories… nothing front page, yet, though. Blogdom appears to have beaten them all to the punch.
When it does hit tonight, the Democats will want to have a defensive argument ready. I can predict how this is going to go; The Democrats will point to the upcoming Donkey convention on Boston, and claim the timing of the story coming out is questionable.
That argument isn’t going to sell, however. This is a fire that won’t go out soon, I think.