[Mb-civic] EDITORIAL Berger Smoke Screen LATimes

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-berger22jul22.story

EDITORIAL

The Berger Smoke Screen

 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 Š 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 judgment, 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 wife, 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.


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