Alan Colmes and some Peter guy kept talking about "the timing" thing as well on Fox this evening. Must be the current excuse.

I surprised they haven't tried the "blame someone else" tactic. Some nefarious Republican stuffed the papers down his pants and then ran away!

Interesting that two of the top national security guys from the Clinton administration have had trouble remembering their security guidelines. From Clinton era DCI John Deutch was also busted for unauthorized removal of classified material. Real security minded bunch Clinton picked out.

from = former

Too early.

Q: "Is it simply the case that leaks that hurt Democrats are 'bad' while those that hurt the Republicans are 'good'?"
A: Yes.

Q: "What accounts for this curious politically-sensitive judgment regarding the value of leaks?"
A: Pure party-hackitude. Nothing more, nothing less.

If memory serves...the Abu Graib incident was another case of scandal that (1) occurred much earlier, (2) was already being investigated and handled without publicity and (3) then was leaked for media/political impact. So was that leak more news worthy and less distracting than Sandy Berger's Trousergate?

I'm having trouble seeing anything but a double standard.

What makes Marshall think Kerry did not know about the investigation? I seriously doubt that.
And if he did - well game set and match (in a rational world).

This all smells of Clinton. Sure, he's smiling and defending the Bergler, and snickering up his sleeve about it, too. Nothing he'd like better than for a Republican to win, keep the economy strong, the civilians safe, take all the outrageous arrows and darts of the Left, and then let Hillary step into a bed of economic roses and domestic tranquility. It's how he succeeded before.

He knows that if Kerry wins, Kerry's ego won't allow him to be less than liberally pro-active, which means everything will stink like Jimmy Carter's presidency and the populace will throw the Dems to the dogs yet again...leaving the Clintons behind the political curve.

I know I had something on Marshall's hypocrisy on my blog yesterday, though I can't say for sure that my post was the one you saw.

See..the Dems were so focused on the "October Surprise" that they didn't know the Repubs were going to unleash the sneakier "July 20, 2004 Surprise"

caught them with their "pants down"

Dan Rather;

"Sandy Berger, who was National Security Adviser under President Clinton stepped aside today as an adviser to Senator John Kerry. CBS's John Roberts reports this was triggered by a carefully orchestrated leak about Berger and the timing of it appears to be no coincidence."

They. Never. Stop. With the bullshit.

Very nice. #5 is especially good.

I'm actually on Josh Marshall's side on this one. I think the Berger story is a distraction, nothing more. After all, the media really should be focused on all the freaking WMDs we're finding in Iraq!!! (As well as hammering Berger day and night for breaching national security for political gain).

Ace,

No, this is not about timing, or some other utter nonsense, this is about a direct, and repeated breach of national security, vis a vis theft and destruction of classified documents, at a time of war (as well pointed out below), by a former NSA and current advisor (well, until yesterday anyway) of a presidential candidate.

To defend what appears to be the indefensible using claims of "distraction and timing" are as loathesome, as they are hypocritical and risible (as you Ace, have so well pointed out).

The Affaire d'Bergler (read conspiracy) may turn out to be a political scandal and crisis as great or greater than Watergate.

Queries:

For whom was Berger acting?

Was Berger being paid for this?

How was the money channeled to him?

Who else knew and when? (specifically, Kerry, Clinton, Rodham-Clinton, McAuliffe?)

etc.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE PICTURE ON DRUDGE?? YES I AM YELLING. MY FREAKIN' WORD.

Wow. That's all I can say.

The spin on this is just sick. Who CARES if the Republicans leaked it to stick it to Kerry? He could have avoided the problem by not having a guy on his campaign stealing codeword level documents and "losing" them.

The spin on this is going to be, "The Repubicans took advantage of our criminality"? Somehow I don't think that's going to fly with anyone besides the MoveON idiots.

If that's all they got, it ain't enough.

The spin on this at denverpost.com, quoting Bill Clinton, is that this is character assassination (hey, I trust that man to know a thing or two about character assassination) because Berger was constantly buried in paperwork while in the White House, that he was a very messy worker, had a messy office, etc.

Which, of course, explains why he stuffed code-word level documents into his underwear. He's just sloppy, although dedicated to his country.

I agree, Vas, the spin on this is sick. I think you summed it up well: "The Republicans took advantage of our criminality."

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