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Thomas Keane has said repeatedly that their committee saw EVERYTHING--that they got their documents from the NSC. Certainly, Sandy Berger would realize that the NSC would have all these classified documents that he had perused at the Archives anyway. Hence, the contention made by some that Berger was trying to hide something seems unlikely. David Gergen said that Sandy Berger took copies, NOT originals! Berger's attorney also indicated that the papers in question were actually copies.
In an interview on MSNBC, Berger's attorney also indicated that he had thought that the matter had been put to rest back in January. In addition, both David Gergen and John McCain have defended Sandy Berger, and I probably put a heck of a lot more faith in those two than in the myriad of idiot journalists and partisan Republicans that have rushed to point an accusing finger at Mr. Berger.
Sadly, it does not matter if this matter with the classified documents arose completely innocently, as contended by Sandy Berger himself, because the leaking of this information essentially has the effect of making it impossible for Sandy Berger to ever get Senate confirmation for a high-level position in government again.
Personally, I tend to believe Berger's explanation of events for the following reasons:
(1) Journalists are often lazy and will jump on a sensational story without proper sourcing, as anyone familiar with the details of Whitewater, from the beginning, certainly knows. Hence, I tend to take a "wait-and-see" attitude toward stories like this where it is clear that one side is attempting to seek partisan advantage. Regardless of what the real story with Berger is, the fact that the GOP has attempted to smear Kerry, Berger, and Clinton with this story makes it transparently obvious that the GOP has certainly jumped on this for ONE reason--partisan advantage!
(2) The Republicans that have gone out of their ways to "tar and feather" Sandy Berger are some of the biggest partisan snakes in the GOP. After the campaign that Saxby Chambliss conducted against Max Cleland, there is NO WAY that I would believe much of anything he has to say! Ditto for the exterminator from Texas. In contrast, less partisan Republicans, like David Gergen and John McCain, have defended Berger and indicated that they would find it hard to believe that there was anything nefarious in what Berger had done.
(3) There was much ado made about the fact that Sandy Berger had taken notes out of the Archives. However, Berger's note-taking was NOT a criminal violation--a point that is readily conceded by just about everyone involved. Instead, it was a violation of Archives policy because Berger did not go through the procedure of having the employees at the National Archives read his notes and approve him taking them with him. I suspect that Berger was merely trying to save time--particularly if he actually had taken voluminous notes, which does appear to be the case. One thing that no one has discussed is whether this particular Archives procedure is a rule that is commonly ignored by people like Berger. I could easily envision a laxity with this sort of thing when someone like Sandy Berger or Condi Rice is scheduled to appear before a congressional committee or some commission in closed session where everyone to hear the testimony would have appropriate security clearance themselves for the documents in question.
(4) According to all those on the 9/11 Commission, copies of all of the documents in question were made available to them through the NSC so it would have made no sense for Berger to attempt to destroy them. Besides, it is my understanding that some of the papers were from a report that Berger had tasked Richard Clarke to prepare--not exactly the sort of thing that one would expect Berger to be trying to bury.
(5) Unless the media have it all wrong, Clinton and former members of his administration have sought to declassify and make public thousands of pages of documents related to counter-terrorism because of the attempts of the Bush administration to scapegoat them for 9/11. (I am not saying that the Clinton administration does not share some of the blame for 9/11, but clearly, there is plenty of blame to go around to every administration over the past 20 years!)
I suppose that I feel a fair amount of empathy for Mr. Berger because I am one of those people who has an office with papers all over the place. Similarly, it does not matter how "important" the information contained within a particular document--I can still manage to bury it under a pile of other documents and be unable to find it! Although I do not handle government classified documents, I do handle data that contain private information about people in various clinical studies. Hence, there is still an expectation that the information I have will not go anyplace else--and it won't! But that doesn't prevent me from being very disorganized with piles and piles of papers all over the place! Also, in the past, I know that I have inadvertently taken a single journal out of the library and committed similar "violations" of library rules--most of the time I did these things without even knowing it! Thus, it is fairly easy for me to see how someone like Sandy Berger could get his butt in a sling for being a disorganized pig.
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