Sandy Berger vs. Scooter Libby

I’m with Jeff Goldstein here on the Libby charade.  Why is there no wall to wall media coverage of Sandy Berger?  There was none when he stuffed his pants, there was none the other day when he gave up his law license in exchange for not telling all.  He would rather never practice law again rather then divulge what he stole and why, but this was received with a yawn.

Ronald Cass:

What information was worth risking his reputation, his career, and his freedom to keep hidden? And who was he risking that for?

Recently, the Board of the DC Bar, which had granted Berger his license, began asking those questions. There was only one way to stop that investigation, to keep from answering questions about what he did and why he did it, to keep the Bar from questioning his colleagues in the Clinton Administration about what had been in the documents Berger destroyed.

Berger took that step, surrendering his license, and stopping the investigation.

This case truly damaged our country while this Libby case is nothing.  Nothing!  How in the world is this a big deal?  A man gets railroaded for perjury on a criminal case that never was.  How could he have obstructed an investigation into outing a covert agent when she was not covert under statue? 

But that’s neither here nor there.  What I’m talking about is the simple fact that even had this been a true leak of a covert agent, ONE covert agent, the case pales in comparison to the crime Sandy Berger committed.

But nothing from the MSM.  Nothing from the left.  The only one’s writing about it at all are the conservative blogs, and that’s it.

Jeff Goldstein:

Meanwhile, right here in front of us, we have a case where Sandy Berger, a former National Security Advisor, has voluntarily surrendered his law license rather than come clean about what documents he destroyed, why he destroyed them, and who he was trying to protect in doing so.

When I begin to hear the same people who’ve been braying for Libby’s blood take similar aim at Berger—and by all rights, their animus should be even more concentrated, given Berger’s position and power, and given the nature of his crime, which involved the pilfering and destruction of classified documents—I’ll take their defenses of the Libby show trial more seriously.

But this will never come.  The lefties will go on and on about how terrible the Plame case was but  completely ignore the Berger case.  A case in which a much bigger fish would rather lose his license rather then to spill the beans.  How else could anyone look at this and not believe he is hiding something big. 

Ronald Cass again:

Justice Department officials who investigated the missing documents initially were persuaded that Berger must, as he claimed, have taken documents by mistake and then destroyed them to avoid having sensitive material in his possession. The plea agreement was based on the assumption that Berger was mishandling classified material – not manhandling it:

Now, however, it is clear that there was nothing innocent or inadvertent in Berger’s conduct. He has something to hide and, whatever it is, he was terrified that at least some part of it would come out of a non-criminal hearing before the Bar. With no possible criminal charges to face, he could not have claimed a right against self-incrimination. He could no longer get away with saying that he took documents accidentally, took them only to prepare for up-coming hearings (why, then, take five copies of one memo?), or didn’t intend to destroy them. He would, in other words, have had to say more than he has so far.

We don’t know with any certainty what is missing, which papers exactly are gone, or what notes – and whose notes – may have been on them. Berger’s lawyer asserted that the 9/11 Commission had copies of all the material Berger stole and destroyed. But if that is so, why would Berger risk so much to destroy it and be so keen today on avoiding any real inquiry into what he did?

Berger had access to Archives documents that could be critical to understanding what information the Clinton Administration had, what options it considered, and what decisions it took on these sensitive subjects. In addition to primary documents, Berger had access to copies, and the only plausible reason for taking five copies of a single memo is that some had original notes on them from key officials, maybe from Berger or President Clinton.

For Berger to risk jail and disgrace, to then give up the right to practice his profession merely in order to avoid having to answer questions, he must be hiding something important. And if it is that important to him, it is also important to us.

But hey, lets put faulty memories and other side shows up on the front page.  Lets write books about it and talk it about it incessantly for years.

Why bother with a very high level Clinton stooge stealing top secret documents about the war on terror from the National Archives and ADMITTING he made false statements during the investigation.  Did he serve 30 months?  Nope.  Because you see, the real news is that some assistant to the VP lied about a case that never really was a case.

Now THATS news!

Curt

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