Sandy Berger and the Underpants

I've been meaning to write about Sandy Berger for quite some time. This is a story which has been so thoroughly ignored by the media that it must indicate something major.

For anyone who isn't aware, Sandy Berger was the former National Security Advisor for the Clinton administration. He has pled guilty to smuggling top secret, classified documents out of the National archives during the 9/11 commission investigation. His rationale for this astonishing ethical lapse has ranged from exhaustion to absent-mindedness. I'm not sure how having one's balls gently tickled by top-secret classified documents from the National Archives after stuffing them down your pants is so easily forgotten, but that's besides the point.

No one has been able (or willing) to provide the public with a possible motive. However, it has come to light in recent days that CIA information about a then possible terrorist suspect - Mohammed Atta - the ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers needed surveillance by the FBI. Clinton's Pentagon attorneys decided that this wouldn't be a good idea POLITICALLY because Atta was in the country legally. The FBI never received this information.

Dr. Sanity has a most excellent post on the possibility that this is what Sandy Berger was attempting to cover up - complete with timeline.

I will make it a point to say that no one but the 9/11 hijackers are to blame for what happened. But the Clinton administration policy of political correctness over national security is inexcusable.

I will close with a comment from Fresh Air, one of Dr. Sanity's commentors which doesn't leave much more to be said.

"...It was the Islamist nutcases who are responsible for the attack. And even if Clinton had acted on the information from Able Danger, there's no assurance 9/11 could have been permanently prevented. I do not hold Bill Clinton responsible for the attacks, or for failing to stop them.

However, if you accept Dr. Sanity's premise, then there is a strong effervescence of guilt coming from the whole Sandy Berger document-stealing business. So what gets me is the grandstanding, preening holier-than-thou horsesh*t that started coming from the Democrats like Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson and Jamie Gorelick when there was a presidential election to be won or lost. Not only was this nothing but after-the-fact, hell-rasising, but a large percentage of it has turned out to be complete lies.

This thing really stinks, and it stinks in a peculiar, detectable odor of scandal in a way that any seasoned political observer will detect. If Berger knew and did nothing, or Clinton knew and did nothing and then tried to cover it up, they should get the political tarring and feathering they both deserve."