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This Week with The Chicowitz: |
| Each week our Boomer-in-Charge, Hershel Chicowitz, has something to say about life, society, or what's going on... from the perspective of a baby boomer. This is what's on his mind the week of July 26: |
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I have written about the importance of character more times than I can remember. This week I have an example from today's news to reinforce why character is so important.
You may have caught the story; but you had to look quickly. The networks have tried as hard as they can to bury it. I contend that it is the biggest story of the year. The National Security Advisor for the Clinton administration was caught stealing sensitive documents from the National Archives. Raise some suspicions? Get your attention? Damn well should! Here is a brief summary:
Samuel Berger is an attorney; a Washington deep insider. He represents clients in many foreign countries. Mr. Berger served as the National Security Advisor to President Clinton - the position now held by Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Berger was deeply involved in all of the decisions made in the second Clinton term, particularly the bombings in Iraq and Kosovo, and whatever Bill Clinton did regarding terrorism.
Last summer, Mr. Berger was asked to testify before the 911 commission. Bill Clinton asked him to review documents in the National Archives in preparation for his testimony. The National Archives is a huge repository for federal documents. Mr. Berger went there several times last September and October. He was allowed access to super-secret documents held in the archives -- documents that you and I could never get close to.
The rules regarding access to these documents -- even for those with the required clearance -- dictate that all documents must be viewed in a special, secure room. An official observer must be in the room at all times. You may not take papers, pens, cameras, or anything of the sort into the room. Any notes you take while there must be reviewed before you leave. Mr. Berger was well aware of the procedures.
While in the secure room, Mr. Berger asked the observer to leave the room several times so that he could make private phone calls. Both Berger and the observer knew that this was a clear violation of the rules. But.... after all, this is the federal government. Mr. Berger also took an excessive number of bathroom breaks. Mr. Berger placed several documents in his portfolio and took them from the archives. He also stuffed documents in his pants pockets and took them from the archives. (There are also reports that he stuffed documents in his socks and shorts. Salacious, perhaps; but where he put them is irrelevant. He took classified, sensitive documents from the National Archives.)
Officials at the National Archives became aware of his actions and informed Mr. Berger that documents were missing. He returned some of the documents, but said that he had "inadvertently" discarded some.
Mr. Berger admitted to stealing and then discarding sensitive, classified documents.
Mr. Berger reviewed and then took all of the copies of a specific document relating to the Clinton administration's actions regarding terrorism. Actually, the documents are not exact copies; each contains notes in the margin, hand-written by members of the Clinton administration. Each "copy" is thus unique. Some copies may have been among those discarded by Mr. Berger.
Mr. Berger has admitted that he knowingly took these documents.
The 911 Commission report offers a hint at what Mr. Berger might have been trying to hide. It records Mr. Berger's objections to at least four proposed attacks on al Qaeda between 1998 and 2000. A footnote on page 500 puts it this way: "In the margin next to Clarke's suggestion to attack al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote 'no.' "
That would explain a great deal, would it not?
The 911 Commission report documents a proposal made in 1999 to send a U-2 mission over Afghanistan to gather intelligence on where bin Laden was hiding (page 134). Mr. Clarke objected on the grounds that Pakistani intelligence would tip bin Laden off that the U.S. was planning a bombing mission. "Armed with this knowledge," the report quotes Mr. Clarke as saying, "old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad."
But we know that is not possible, don't we, as there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. That is what we have been told, isn't it?
Mr. Berger is currently the subject of a criminal investigation. He has been aware that the government knows of his activities since last fall. He has engaged legal counsel to represent him in this matter.
Busy man that he is, Mr. Berger also served as an adviser presidential candidate John Kerry - until this story broke last week, when he quickly resigned. Mr. Berger has consulted regularly with Mr. Kerry on the Iraq war, Middle East relations, terrorism and other foreign policy matters, helping to formulate speeches, prepare op-ed articles and brief reporters on the candidate's positions. Mr. Berger was likely trying to set himself up as a candidate for secretary of state under a Kerry administration.
Last week, NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw asked Mr. Kerry about Mr.
Berger:
Brokaw: "Did you know that [Berger] was under investigation?"
Kerry: "I didn't have a clue, not a clue."
Brokaw: "He didn't share that with you?
Kerry: "I didn't have a clue."
All of that is fact. Undisputed fact. Fact; not speculation; not vague accusations; not rumors; not unsubstantiated charges; FACT.
A reporter for the Associated Press broke the story broke last week. The New York Times recently ran a story documenting rumors that George Bush might dump Dick Cheney on page 1, above the fold. The day after this story broke, the New York Times ran it on page A-16.
In May 2004, the Washington Post called Mr. Berger "a top Kerry advisor." After the story broke, the Post demoted him down to "informal advisor." Similarly, the Los Angeles Times in May called Berger a "Kerry foreign policy advisor." It now calls him as an "unpaid consultant." The Boston Globe in May called Berger a "top advisor." Now the paper relegates him to "informal advisor." No bias there, huh?
Mr. Berger knew that he was the subject of a federal, criminal investigation, and John Kerry says he did not have a clue? What does that tell you?
President Bush has wisely chosen not to speak publicly about the matter. House speaker Dennis Hastert calls it a very serious matter. The first and strongest response from the Democrats has been to question the timing of the release of the story. The implication is that the Bush administration leaked the story now in order to do damage to the Kerry campaign.
Nonsense. If the Bush administration wanted to do damage to the Kerry campaign by leaking the story, it would have done so the week before the election - not in the middle of July.
Funny... I do not recall any Democrats objecting to the timing of the leak regarding George Bush's DUI charge 30 years ago, a story which was released the Friday before the election in 2000.
"There seems to be a pattern here," said Jano Cabrera, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee (DNC). "Whenever questions are raised about this president's handling of national security, the Bush administration seems to release information for political cover."
A pattern? Political cover? A Clinton cabinet-level member stuffs documents in his pants and steals them, and the DNC is pointing to a non-existent pattern of the Bush administration? Are you buying this?
But of course, the timing is irrelevant -- it's another distraction from the fact -- THE FACT -- that a former Clinton administration adviser stole sensitive, highly classified documents from the National Archives. Many people have gone to prison for committing far less serious crimes.
Mr. Clinton told the Denver Post that he and his current aides were "laughing" about the trouble Mr. Berger finds himself in which because of his self-described "sloppiness."
Secretary of Defense Cohen, the Commander-in-Chief, Madam Albright.... and sloppy old Sandy Berger... yuking it up.
Indeed, that was the word used by all of the Democrats who came forth to defend Mr. Berger: "sloppiness." He was sloppy. I must have heard that word 30 times last week. It's as if someone at the top faxed a message to everyone else telling them to use that word to describe what happened.
No; sloppy is an adjective. It is a word used to describe HOW something is done. The issue here is not HOW Mr. Berger stole sensitive, classified documents. It is precisely THAT he stole sensitive, classified documents. The description of it as sloppy is to miss the point -- which is precisely what the Democrats want to do.
Note that their reaction is to question the timing, to describe it as sloppy -- not to express outrage that a member of their party committed a serious felony.
Mr. Berger is not the first member of the Clinton administration to get in hot water for mishandling documents. Former CIA Director John Deutch was caught taking classified information and keeping it on unsecured computers at his home during his time at the CIA and Pentagon.
How did that turn out? Mr. Clinton issued a pardon to Mr. Deutch at the same time he was pardoning his step-brother, his bother-in-law, and convicted felon and huge Democratic fundraiser, Marc Rich, and 135 other convicted felons.
Marc Rich, Susan and Jim McDougal, John Deutch, Sandy Berger, Craig Livingstone, Web Hubbell..... not to mention a host of other scandals and filth connected with the Clinton administration.
A Clinton administration official is under criminal investigation for the theft of highly sensitive documents. And Bill Clinton laughs about it.
See, ladies and gentlemen, THIS is why character matters. You cannot control what officials do once they get in office. And Lord knows you cannot count on the judicial system to deal with them.
So your best judge of what an individual will do is to look deep into his character -- not his party affiliation, not his wife, not his deep blue eyes, not his accent. Look at his character. Look at his life pattern.
Character matters. More than anything else. Character matters. Life is not a dress rehersal. This is the real thing. Actions have consequences.
Please remember that, lest you be convinced that Sandy Berger's theft of highly sensitive, classified material was just another third-rate burglary.
A BBHQ visitor carries the "sloppy" idea further:
| I am sure one could say that Teddy Kennedy is a "sloppy" driver and he handled the affaird after his little bridge accident "sloppily." Sounds like today's press would go for it. |
We have an update to this story:
In 2005, Mr. Berger entered into a plea bargain which kept him from serving jail time. The account he initially gave federal investigators was a lie. In fact, he revealed that he deliberately removed the documents from the National Archives and that, far from disposing of them mistakenly, he cut them to pieces with scissors. None of this was inadvertent.
Martha Stewart served jail time for lying to investigators. Sandy Berger gets a slap on the wrist for deliberating stealing and destroying top secret documents. This is justice?
Oh, but we're not done yet. In September 2005, two days after he was placed on probation, Mr. Berger was caught doing 88 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone. Mr. Berger claimed that he was unaware of how fast he was going.
Now, I don't know about you, but I think that if I were going 88 mph, I'd have some idea of just how fast it was.
More than 30 mph over the speed limit, and he had no idea. This is the guy who advising President Bill Clinton and candidate John Kerry. That says as much about Bill Clinton and John Kerry as it does about Sandy Berger -- though they are all low-rent dirt-bags.
January, 2007: We have another update to this story:
The House of Representatives finally released a report on the Berger theft. Among other observations, the archives reported that, on one occasion, Mr. Berger took secret documents out of the building, hid them under a construction trailer across the street, went back inside, and then retrieved them when he left.
Here is an excerpt from the executive summary of the 61-page report:
And his Democratic colleagues continue to say that he was just sloppy.
And worse yet, the mainstream media continues to ignore this story.
And worse yet, nobody, but nobody in the government has pursued an investigation of why Mr. Berger went to such lengths to steal secret documents relating to the Clinton administration.
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Hershel will have something else to say on August 2: mark your
calendar 
to
remind you to come back to BBHQ every Monday.
We're open to offerings from visitors to BBHQ. If you have something to say of interest to boomers, write it as well as you can in 800 - 1,000 words, and send it to us. We can't guarantee we'll publish it, but we'll surely consider it.
If you like what we're doing here at BBHQ, please help us by buying stuff through our link to Amazon.com:
| The BBHQ Album of the Month is "Old Friends Live on Stage (Deluxe Edition) (2 CD/1 DVD)," by Simon & Garfunkel. If you were fortunate enough to see them in concert last year, I do not have to sell you. The concert was terrific! This album collection includes 55 songs, plus their new recording, "Citizen of the Planet," and one of the songs sung by the Everly Brothers during the concert. The DVD was recorded during their concert in Madison Square Garden in 2003. For any S&G fan, this is a must have! But then, you knew that already, didn't you? |
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The BBHQ Book of the Month is
"Vinyl Highway," by
Dee Dee Phelps. You remember her as Dee Dee, of Dick and Dee Dee.
Together, they took a decade long ride on the rock and roll roller
coaster. It was a heck of a ride! Dick Clark, Quincy Jones, the Beach
Boys, Glenn Campbell, Dionne Warwick, Bobby Vinton... Dick and Dee Dee
rubbed shoulders with all of them. This is her "behind the scenes" story.
It's pretty cool.
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