A Small Victory

ScandalPants? What idiot came up with that?

;)

I was taking the whole thing with a salt-lick until more info came out, then I heard about the socks. You cannot, even if you tried hard, 'accidentally' shove documents in your socks.

They're now denying the "in his socks" part. Whether this means that stuffing the socks were intentional and not inadvertant hasn't yet been asked (at least that I've seen.)

And what socks they must be, that papers can be stuffed in them? Mine don't have room for my feet.

Where's all this spin? So far it seems like Operation Ignore on the Berger story. Here's what I found (of all the Lefty bloggers that I read, which is quite a few, this is the only comment):

So even if one imagines the most nefarious intentions -- which I'm certainly not inclined to do -- it's hard to imagine what taking copies of such documents would have been meant to accomplish. At the same time, Berger has spent his career in and out of the national security bureaucracy and must know the dos and don'ts of custody of classified materials like the back of his hand. So I don't know what he could have been thinking. - Joshua Marshall

I noticed you managed to dig up someone trying to pull Plame into this somehow, which is a pretty pathetic Tu Quoque fallacy, but as far as I can tell, everyone who's worth reading is reserving judgement for whem we actually get some real details. Not quite enough to justify the resurrection of disco, in my opinion :)

It's not disco. It's dance music!

I wouldn't want to engage in a logical fallacy that I don't understand... so I'd simply ask why this was leaked at this particular moment (the "socks" allegation comes from one particular leak), when his actions took place in October 2003 and it's been with the FBI since January 2004. Further wondering why the FBI hasn't interviewed him.

Further, all of the preceding should in no way mitigate the seriousness of what Berger did.

P.S. I'm really really hoping that I get to be the Left's official spokesperson on this one. (closing eyes, crossing fingers)

I thought socks were usually used for stuffing ... other places.

Well, they're sorta denying it. Like Joe Lockhart saying "that's absurd. Whoever said that is interested in something other than the truth". Or Lanny Davis challenging any "unnamed official to come forth and level that charge publicly". Like that can happen during an investigation.

I'd forgotten how much fun it was to parse these statements. And who alerted Lockhart and Davis anyway?

He took notes. He put the notes (somewhere...call it pockets if you like). No one reviewed them. He knows you can't do that - and he took a huge risk doing it.

And the classified ones that ended up in the portfolio? For crying out loud, they have bright yellow or red (well, these were probably yellow with special markings on them) COVERS on them! You can't just miss that. You wouldn't stick em in a portfolio because you wouldn't want to run the risk of missing that!

It is absurd to say this was inadvertent or sloppy or anything except deliberate. So the question that begs to be asked is "why"?

Not only "WHY" Dave.

What's in them????

What's all this fuss about stufiing papers in Clinton's pet cat?

Or Lanny Davis challenging any "unnamed official to come forth and level that charge publicly". Like that can happen during an investigation. - Dave in Texas [emphasis mine]

Not to add any weight to the comments of Lanny Davis, but there is absolutely nothing to prevent someone from making a public charge as suggested unless they are afraid of being shown wrong and prosecuted for defamation. In fact, to bring Berger to trial, the sixth amendment gives him the right to confront his accusors (this does not either require or prohibit them from going public now).

Having said that, it's clear that if you accept Berger's "side" at face value, at minimum his clearance needs to be permanently revoked and possibly he should be in jail. That's not even considering the "and we think he did it on purpose" angle. I don't really see how anyone can spin this.

Careless nothing...apparently Berger is a true american hero!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104×2027390

or if you are afraid of pissing off a judge with pre-trial accusations, or if you've already been told by a prosecutor "you go public with that and you screw us with the judge".

But my point was simply that it was a non-denial denial.

And I agree with you Soli, the bigger point is there's no way you can read this as accidental, socks or no. Berger risked being convicted of a felony. I want to know why.

He was the NSA. He absolutely had to know he was breaking the law. Period. No spin is acceptable.

Ray: Exactly.

There is no possible way that this could have been an accident. You don't do that with classified documents (anyone with a security clearance can tell you that).

And the former NSA? Not a chance. It would be like you or me forgetting to get dressed before leaving the house in the morning.

Dave in Texas,

If you're going to piss off the judge by making the accusation public, it's way too late already. The identity of the accusor is not relevent to that issue.

Why is no one making the obvious connection between Berger and Pee Wee Herman? ;)

Whole pantload of Berger news at my place, Michele.

TrouserGate Update

/linkpimping

So, a former Clinton crony has done something that may torpedo Kerry's campaign, possibly leaving the Toricelli option to bring in Hillary at the Democratic convention. If one were a conspiracy theorist, one would think that the Shrillbilly asked Berger to purposefully take a dive to push Kerry out of the way. Just a thought.

And David Letterman's never-caught catchphrase "in my PANTS!" suddenly becomes relevant. :)

My initial hunch is that this doesn't have anything to do with Kerry per se (except by illustrating the nature of Kerry's friends.) Seems more likely to me that Berger was acting as part of the Clinton Legacy Preservation Squad, Clinton's courtier attempting to send some embarrassing policy document down the memory hole. But I could be wrong.

Thankfully, it looks like the story has enough steam behind it that the media won't be able to simply ignore it.

well Soli, I should have just left it at "it was a non-denial denial" then.

Sandy, is that a document in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?

well...somebody had to say it! ;-)

There are all kinds of nasty theories about this whole episode. (And some pretty darn funny jokes, too.) Regardless, Berger should get jail time over this. Instapundit has a pretty thorough round-up of the whole mess.

"I mean, he stuffed the papers in his socks. His socks, for crying out loud. "

No, no he didn't.