Is the "Berger story" more like the "Plame affair" or the Ollie North...

[kentuck]

shredding tale from the '80's? Of course, for those old enough to remember, Ollie North and Fawn Hall shredded documents most of the night until the shredder jammed and then carried the rest out in their underwear, etc. And Ollie became a hero to the right wing for those exploits. Will Sandy Berger be considered a hero in the future?

But, the Plame affair threatened the lives and livelihood of an active CIA agent, and as far as we know, no lives were threatened by the notes that Berger sneaked out of the Archives? So, the analogy seems to fit the Ollie North analogy more closely, in my opinion.

[merh]

1. It is comparable to Ollie's follies as opposed to Plame.

Plame is a national security issue, the outing of an intelligence agent that was investigation the trafficing of WMDs.

Berger read his own security papers and accidently picked some up when he left.

Ollie's follies were worse than Berger's blunder.

[wicket]

2. Oliver North

Plus, Oliver North lied to Congress.

[JHB]

3. Comparable the way Spain is closer than Turkey...

...to North America, but the two (Ollie's shredding party and the Plame affair) are much closer to each other than the worst case scenario of the Berger issue is to either one of them.

[MrMonk]

5. Not comparable.

Berger took copies and didn't destroy originals.
He didn't hide anything.

[merh]

8. Comparable because they deal with the handling of documents.

Not identical because the documents mishandled by Berger were not destroyed and there was no effort to conceal the handling of the documents.

"comparable - Capable of being compared."

Berger is not comparable to Plame as the Plame incident involved the release of sensitive, intelligence information that publicized the identity of a covert agent. In violation of national security interests and federal law (felony).

The question posed in the original post was Berger incident comparable to Plame or North.

The question was answered with caveats.

[lancdem]

4. Those notes that Berger "sneaked out" were returned months ago

and they weren't even the focus of the investigation.

[Snellius]

6. They also aren't relevant to anything

These documents only have to do with the security for the Millenium and other matters that go back to 1999. They have nothing to do with any present secret plans or even with anything done in the current administration. Besides, they were supposedly taken in October of last year, when Kerry or anyone else had no notion of whom would be the Democratic candidate for president. And how could Kerry or anyone else have made any use of them in any case?

[sadiesworld]

7. John Deutch.

At WORST.

[HootieMcBoob]

9. Don't play their game

Dance "bang" "bang" Dance I say!!