BVDgate: All the ex-president's men
By Nicholas Stix
web posted July 26, 2004
What was in Sandy Berger's Underwear?
Republicans are filled with glee, as Democrats fall all over
themselves, trying to diminish the fact that Bill Clinton's former
national security adviser, Sandy Berger, was caught stuffing
classified documents and national secrets down his drawers, in
his jacket, in his socks, and in a leather portfolio, in order to steal
them from the National Archives, and to later destroy some of
them. (Berger returned some documents, but only after he was
caught, but had "accidentally" destroyed the most important
ones.) Note that Berger reportedly burgled the Archives on five
separate occasions. Watergate, meet BVDgate.
For the past thirty years, many observers have thought it the
height of paranoia for Pres. Richard Nixon's men to burglarize
the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the
Watergate Hotel in June 1972, given that Nixon clearly was
going to win re-election in a landslide in 1972 against left-liberal
Democrat Sen. George McGovern. If the Watergate break-in
and Nixon's attempted cover-up of it, which led to his forced
resignation in August 1974 were the height of paranoia, we need
a new vocabulary to describe the burglarizing of the National
Archives AFTER Bill Clinton had won re-election, completed
two terms of office, and left the White House. In the spirit of Bill
and Hillary Clinton's teacher, Karl Marx, who said that all great
world-historical incidents and individuals occur twice, "the first
time as tragedy, the second as farce," one can't help asking,
"What did the ex-President know, and when did he know it?"
Sandy Burglar, er, Berger used weasel words like "inadvertent"
and "accidentally discarded" to wish away criminal acts that
jeopardized national security, and which were likely done to
protect the Clinton Administration from facing the tribunal of
history, and to save John Kerry's presidential campaign (which
Berger served as an advisor, until the BVDgate revelations
became public, and he resigned). Berger would have disgraced
himself and his comrades less, had he simply refused comment.
In order to diminish the significance of such shoplifter behavior
with a straight face, you have to either be on powerful sedatives,
bite your tongue clear through, or be the sort of sociopath that
could fool a polygraph expert.
Rich Shoplifters are Not Like You or Me
And I know shoplifters. While teaching college during the late
1990s, I used to moonlight as a security guard at what was then
the word's biggest toy store, the Toys'R'Us at 34th Street and
Sixth Avenue in Manhattan (as well as other local Toys'R'Us
stores). But none of the mopes I caught ever claimed that his
theft was "inadvertent," and none of them had a former president
defending them, by saying that they were so disorganized, that
they did that sort of thing all the time.
An explanation of my usage is in order. Journalists are supposed
to say that a suspect "allegedly" committed a crime, or that
"police said" that he committed a crime. That requirement does
not apply, however, to cases where a suspect has admitted to
the crime. Since the law usually requires criminal intent, Sandy
Berger has sought to confuse matters, by saying that he only
"inadvertently" stole and in certain cases "accidentally discarded"
the documents in question, but all the Clintonesque dishonesty in
the world cannot twist language so completely, that one can
"inadvertently" stick government secrets in one's drawers and
socks, or due to "sloppiness" "accidentally discard" highly
classified, secret reports. Especially when one is a former
national security advisor, who formulated protocols for securing
national secrets.
The most significant pieces of Berger's booty were anywhere
from two to five drafts and one copy of the final report -- the
"Millennium After-Action Review" (hereafter: "MAAR") -- on al
Qaeda's failed Millennium Plot to simultaneously blow up LAX
Airport and other targets on New Year's Eve 1999, that he
absconded with in a leather portfolio.
The "accidents" occurred last year, while Berger was on a
mission for Bill Clinton, to select which documents to turn over
to the 911 Commission. The MAAR, whose drafts -- full of
hand-written notes by administration officials and family
members -- which Berger destroyed, was arguably the most
important such document.
I Knew Max Weber, He was a Friend of Mine, and Mr. Berger,
You're No Max Weber!
Since it was against the law for Berger to remove anything from
the Archives, all of his defenses and those of his cronies and
former chief are irrelevant. (He thought that the drafts were "only
photocopies," rather than originals; he was reading through
"thousands of pages" of documents each day he spent in the
Archives, and lost track; he's such a mess, that he made such
mistakes all the time in the past.) And note that he was jamming
documents into his socks, his jacket pocket, his BVDs, and his
leather portfolio. Indeed, as an old security guard, I have to
wonder what purpose the portfolio served, save as a crime tool.
There is only one scenario I can conceive of, in which Berger
would have done grunt work normally unheard of for such a
powerful man: He was up to no good, and did not want any
witnesses. He didn't realize that he had witnesses, anyway.
In the Millennium Plot, al Qaeda sought on New Year's Eve,
1999, to simultaneously to blow up the Radisson Hotel in
Amman, Jordan; LAX Airport in Los Angeles; and U.S. Navy
destroyer, the USS The Sullivans, in the harbor at Aden, Yemen.
In thwarting the Millennium Plot, high-level, multi-billion-dollar
federal terror watchdogs proved worthless. Jordanian
intelligence foiled the Amman hit, without any help from the U.S.;
a U.S. customs agent and FBI agent prevented the LAX hit,
without any help or directives from Washington; and the Yemen
attack failed due to the incompetence of al Qaeda's operatives.
The Dick Clarke Show
The MAAR, which was written on Sandy Berger's orders by
then-counter terrorism czar Richard Clarke, reportedly detailed
holes in America's anti-terror preparations, and suggested
reforms to plug the holes. In Clarke's new book, Against All
Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, which he wrote in
order to help the Democrats regain the White House, financially
exploit his years of public service, make him and his cronies look
good, and protect Bill Clinton's place in history, Clarke inaccurately depicted the Port Angeles Millennium
Plot action, fabricated out of whole cloth a Clinton
Administration role in foiling the plot, and dishonestly denigrated
the Bush Administration's anti-terror preparations.
Clarke claimed that shortly before the arrest of Ressam, customs
agents and other law enforcement officers had been ordered to
exercise extra scrutiny, which led directly to his capture. That is
nonsense on stilts.
It was without any directives from Washington, D.C., that on
December 14, 1999, Port Angeles, WA Customs Agent Diana
Dean took the initiative to check out an Arab man entering the
country from British Columbia,
Ahmed Ressam aka Benni Antoine Noris aka Reda, who
was acting "hinky." In the trunk of Ressam's car, agents found
nitroglycerin. The Algerian Ressam proved to be an al Qaeda
terrorist.
In
Customs Officer Diana Dean's Senate testimony, she
mentioned nothing about a special directive, and emphasized the
routine nature of the work she and her colleagues did, in
questioning, searching, and arresting Ahmed Ressam.
"The fact is U.S. Customs Inspectors do things like this every
hour of the day, every day of the week, every week of the year,
at all 301 ports of entry in our nation. Some times we interdict
dangerous drugs, sometimes guns, contaminated food, defective
parts, the list goes on."
Dick Clarke also lied in his book and his 911 Commission
testimony about his briefings of incoming Bush Administration
officials, when he suggested he was a modern-day Cassandra,
desperately seeking to get Bush advisors to take the dire threat
posed by al Qaeda seriously, only to have his warnings fall on
deaf ears. He has repeatedly insisted that everything was in place
to fight terrorism when the Clinton Administration left office, but
that the Bush people ignored all that invaluable work. In fact, it
appears that Clarke sandbagged the new Administration. Did 3,
000 innocent people die, so that Dick Clarke could protect his
party from embarrassment, and gain partisan advantage?
In his book, Clarke was particularly vicious towards National
Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and Attorney General John
Ashcroft, claiming that Rice had never heard of al Qaeda before
he mentioned the terror network to her in early 2001 (Rice had
given a public lecture on al Qaeda prior to the 2000 election),
and portraying Ashcroft as an imbecile:
"When I and one of my staff met with Ashcroft early in the
Administration, we were left wondering if his discussion with us
had been an act. My associate asked me on the drive back to
the White House, "He can't really be that slow, can he? I mean,
you can't get to be the Attorney General of the United States and
be like that, right?'
"I wasn't sure. ‘I don't know,' I said. ‘Maybe he's just cagey, but
after all, he did lose a Senate reelection to a dead man.'"
(In 2000, Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft ran for re-election against
Democrat Gov. Mel Carnahan. Both men were immensely
popular in Missouri, where Ashcroft
was himself a former two-term governor, and before that a two-
term attorney general, and the race was a tight one. Gov.
Carnahan died in a plane crash less than three weeks before the
election. Owing to the sympathy factor, with the understanding
that Gov. Carnahan's widow, Jean, would serve in her husband's
place, Missouri voters "elected" the dead governor.
While I can understand how it would be irresistible for Clarke to
get a cheap laugh at Ashcroft's expense, his joke required that he
misrepresent the actual situation, something he did with regularity
in his book. As far as I can see, Jean Carnahan's election was
illegal. Her name was not on the ballot, her husband's was.
Missouri law stipulates that only those living in Missouri may
legally run for election. Mrs. Carnahan could only have run
legally, had she put her own name on the official ballot, and the
deadline for doing that had passed. Hence, all votes for Mel
Carnahan were invalid, and Sen. Ashcroft should have won re-
election in a landslide. Ashcroft surely knew this, but in a show
of chivalry that was wasted on the widow Carnahan -- not to
mention on Dick Clarke -- chose not to contest the election.
Democrat Acting Gov. Roger Wilson appointed Mrs. Carnahan
senator, but again, according to Missouri election law, Wilson
had no authority to do so. In 2002, Jean Carnahan lost her only
election campaign to Republican Jim Talent. In December, 2000,
president-elect George W. Bush nominated John Ashcroft
Attorney General of the United States.)
As General Ashcroft testified before the 911 Commission in
April, when the Bush Administration took over in January 2001,
Dick Clarke withheld the MAAR, until after 911. If that charge
is true, Clarke may be liable for federal prosecution.
You may ask why I believe Ashcroft over Clarke. While I
called, in September 2002, for John Ashcroft's dismissal based
on his
persecution of scientist Dr. Steven Hatfill in the anthrax
case, I have never had reason to consider him a liar. Conversely,
I have caught Dick Clarke telling so many falsehoods, that I
would not trust him to give me the correct time of day.
According to a
July 21 MSNBC report combining material from NBC's
David Gregory and Pete Williams and the Associated Press, "In
his April 13 testimony to the Sept. 11 commission, Attorney
General John Ashcroft said the [MAAR] ‘warns the prior
administration of a substantial al-Qaida network' in the United
States. Ashcroft said it also recommends such things as using
tougher visa and border controls and prosecutions of immigration
violations and minor criminal charges to disrupt terror cells.
"‘These are the same aggressive, often-criticized [by Democrats
and their establishment media comrades – N.S.] law
enforcement tactics that we have unleashed for 31 months to
stop another al-Qaida attack,' Ashcroft told the panel. He added
that he never saw the documents before the Sept. 11 attacks."
It was also Ashcroft alone who had the cojones to point out, in
his commission testimony, the role in weakening America's
defenses of 911 commissioner Jamie Gorelick, who as Clinton
Administration deputy attorney general, erected the "wall" that
kept the FBI and CIA from sharing intelligence (yet another
matter that Dick Clarke failed to mention in his book). So, I
guess Ashcroft wasn't so slow, after all.
(Many Midwesterners have a tendency to speak at a much
slower tempo than folks from places like New York, California,
or Washington D.C., a style that many "sophisticats" consider a
sign of being intellectually challenged.)
As a July 21
Wall Street Journal editorial observed,
"Ahmed Ressam was one of the would-be Millennium bombers
whom the French had identified to U.S. intelligence agencies as
an al Qaeda operative planning to attack America. But the ‘wall
of separation' meant that when an alert U.S. customs officer
stopped Ressam as he tried to enter the country from
Vancouver, the Justice Department had no idea who he was.
This helps illuminate the claim made in the missing [MAAR],
according to Mr. Ashcroft's testimony, that our success in
stopping these 1999 attacks was a result of sheer ‘luck.'"
Dick Clarke's unprofessional behavior, in not providing the
MAAR to the incoming administration, i.e., in obstructing the
Bush Administration's anti-terror precautions, is just one of
countless matters that Clarke forgot to mention in his book. The
MAAR was essential to formulating the new Administration's
anti-terrorism strategy. Consider Clarke's heroic, West Wing-
style depiction of is own behavior in the Bush Administration
prior to and on 911, and his concealment of the MAAR.
Consider, too, his classified 2002 Senate testimony, which
caused no reaction, versus his sensational, book-selling public
testimony in 2004, though Democrat politicians have denied that
the testimonies contradicted each other. As the Sandy Berger
Saga unfolds, someone may have to write a book about Clarke's
book, just to set the story straight.
On the July 21 ABC News Nightline, where Clarke appeared as
a paid ABC consultant, he embellished on his previous
embellishments.
Host Chris Bury: "Under Pres. Bush, the [911] Commission
report, at least what we know about it so far, seems to be
hardest on this issue of not connecting the dots, particularly with
the FBI, some of its agents knowing, possibly warning about a
plot, that hijackers might be in the country training, not
connecting the dots with Zacarias Moussaoui, who had already
been detained.
"If you're going to name one thing under Pres. Bush that stands
out in terms of sloppiness, is that it?"
Dick Clarke: "No, I think the one mistake that was made in the
Bush Administration was actually made by the President, and
that was when he was told repeatedly by the CIA over the
course of June, July, and August that a major attack by al Qaeda
was coming, that he didn't personally get involved, in trying to
make his government work better, to stop it. Contrast that with
the way Pres. Clinton did get involved, to try to stop a similar
attack around the Millennium period, and by getting the cabinet
members involved, Clinton was able to get the government to
work better, and did prevent a series of attacks around that
period."
The preceding passage from Clarke was an exercise in fiction.
No person or agency, including the CIA and Dick Clarke
provided Pres. Bush with any concrete information regarding
where, when, or how an al Qaeda attack would be carried out.
Indeed, in his book, Clarke mocks the idea of such vague
warnings.
As for Pres. Clinton, there is no evidence that any actions he
took helped prevent any Millennium terrorist attacks. All credit
goes properly to people like Customs Agent Diana Dean and FBI Agent Fred
Humphries. It was only after Agent Dean and her colleagues
had caught Ahmed Ressam and his explosives, and after Agent
Humphries had made him for an Algerian, and thus figured out
that Ressam was not who he claimed to be, and with his
colleagues cracked the case, that Pres. Clinton swung into
action. Bill Clinton was a day late and a dollar short.
Clarke's July 21 Nightline claim that Pres. Clinton prevented a
"series of attacks around that [Millennium] period" is
contradicted by his own book. In Against All Enemies, Clarke
shows that it was Jordanian intelligence that prevented the first of
three simultaneous Millennium attacks, without any American
aid, and who alerted us to the Millennium Plot, not the other way
around. (Clarke writes in such an odd way, however, that he
somehow transfers the credit from the Jordanians to his CIA
crony, Cofer Black.) And the third and final simultaneous
Millennium attack Clarke cites in his book, planned for the port
of Aden, Yemen, failed not because of American derring-do,
much less due to Bill Clinton's personal involvement, but due to
al Qaeda's incompetence: "As they pushed the boat down the
landing and into the water, however, it moved off a little into the
harbor, and sank. The explosives weighed too much."
According to Attorney General Ashcroft, Clarke's July 21 claims
about Pres. Clinton helping prevent the Millennium Plot are also
contradicted by his own MAAR, which may have something to
do with why so many drafts and copies of the document found
their way into Sandy Berger's portfolio.
It is Dick Clarke's m.o. to give all credit, deserved or not, to his
Democrat cronies and particularly to his Democrat president,
and to allocate all blame to Republicans, particularly to the
present Republican president.
Timing is Everything
While the media have uncritically repeated charges and
insinuations by Democrats, including Bill Clinton, that the
publication of the Berger story was politically motivated, in order
to upstage the release of the 911 Commission report, the media
have refused to put the Berger story in the context of the political
stage-managing of the 911 Commission itself, particularly in late
March, as a preening Dick Clarke gave his disingenuous apology
to relatives of 911 victims, and one Democrat commission
member even held up Clarke's book for the TV cameras, a
book whose publisher, The Free Press, had scheduled its release
to coincide with Clarke's testimony. Live by media manipulation,
die by media manipulation.
And yet, Democrats' charges and insinuations – most notably
those of David Gergen and Bill Clinton Himself, reflect on
themselves more than on their targets. A man is caught
jeopardizing national security, and they suggest that the
publication of the case is the problem, not the crimes? This is
what happens when people live in a bubble, protected by
journalistic camp followers. They not only have contempt for the
law and the truth, but are so shameless that they don't even feel
an obligation to appear to care about them.
According to the previously cited, July 21 NBC/AP report,
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said, "What information
could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of experience
in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering
our nation's most sensitive secrets? Mr. Berger has a lot of
explaining to do."
"House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told reporters
the case was about theft and questioned a statement by Berger
issued Monday attributing the removal of the documents and
notes to sloppiness.
"‘I think it's gravely, gravely serious what he did, if he did it. It
could be a national security crisis,' DeLay said."
In case you were wondering whether stealing government secrets
is (there goes that nasty verb "to be," again) still a crime, Deputy
Attorney General James Comey reminded the media that it is. As
Fox News reported,
"‘As a general matter, we take issues of classified information
very seriously,' Comey said in response to a reporter's question
about the Berger bind, adding that the department has
prosecuted and sought administrative sanctions against people
for mishandling classified information.
"‘It's our lifeblood, those secrets,' Comey continued. ‘It's against
the law for anyone to intentionally mishandle classified
documents either by taking it to give to somebody else or by
mishandling it in a way that is outside the government
regulations.'"
Rest easy, Mr. Comey. Bill Clinton has assured the nation that
Sandy Berger is a "good man." And I thought "honor among
thieves" was a myth! I don't have the space today to analyze at
length the significance of being called a "good man" by Bill
Clinton, but one meaning of the phrase was provided by Mae
West: "Goodness had nothing to do with it."
The Moralist
My favorite sideshow to the Berger Affair has been the reaction
of former Clinton staffer and Berger colleague, David Gergen, an
allegedly non-partisan commentator at ABC News. According
to Fox News, Gergen responded to
the news of Berger's theft and destruction of classified
documents, "I think it's more innocent than it looks."
"‘I have known Sandy Berger for a long time,' Gergen said in a
television interview. ‘He would never do anything to compromise
the security of the United States.' Gergen said he thought that ‘it
is suspicious' that word of the investigation of Berger would
emerge just as the Sept. 11 commission is about to release its
report, since ‘this investigation started months ago.'"
So, for the feds to notify the media about the former national
security advisor committing crimes and harming national security
is "suspicious," but the crimes themselves – committed on five
different occasions – are "more innocent" than they look.
I suppose that the only thing that would have satisfied Gergen's
high ethical standards, would have been if the government had
held off alerting the media about Berger's crimes until Judgment
Day. I know that if I had stuffed secret, federal documents in my
shorts, I'd now be sharing a jail cell with my new husband,
"Monster," praying that my lawyer can get the government to
offer a plea bargain of, say, five years hard time in the federal
maximum security lock-up in Marion, IL. As far as leading
Democrats are concerned, the laws are for "the little people."
Meanwhile, David Gergen the moralist has seen nothing
"suspicious" in any of the monthly "October Surprises" churned
out by the media-political complex' political hoax machine.
And Berger's liar, er, lawyer (same difference), Lanny Breuer,
insists that, "Mr. Berger does not want any issue surrounding the
9/11 commission to be used for partisan purposes." What a
comedian that Breuer is!
To put BVDgate in moral perspective, consider the 1993 White
House Travelgate affair, which occurred on moralist David
Gergen's watch.
When the Clintons took over the White House, they decided
they wanted to put their cronies in charge of the White House
Travel Office. Billy Dale had run the office for thirty-two years,
under seven different presidents (starting with John F. Kennedy).
Hillary Clinton, who held no lawful elected or appointed position,
reportedly told White House officials, "We need those people
out. We need our people in," and ordered Clinton chief of staff
Mack McLarty and White House administrator David Watkins
to fire the entire Travel Office staff. Which they proceeded to
do.
Though it is not clear how they could do so legally, Clinton
cronies, most notably TV producer Harry Thomason, were to
take over the Travel Office, and turn it into a private cash cow.
Mrs. Clinton then called the Justice Department, and sicced
federal prosecutors on Billy Dale, even though she knew that
Dale had not committed any crime. Seven months after firing
Dale, under the incredible pretext of renewing Dale's access to
the White House, White House counsel even prostituted the
FBI, requisitioning and receiving Bureau background
checks on Dale, in seeking to further smear him. (Dale was
clean as a whistle.) Ultimately, not only did Dale lose his job, but
he lost his home, his life savings, and two-and-a-half years of his
life defending himself against a malicious prosecution. Engineering
a malicious prosecution is a crime. So, too, is perjury. Hillary
Clinton lied to the independent
counsel, when she denied having had any hand in the firing
of Dale & Co.
Back in the present, Gergen & Co. insist that Sandy Berger's
crimes are "more innocent" than they look. Tell that to Billy Dale.
I suppose there is a certain historical symmetry in the henchman
of a president who used to donate his used underwear to charity
as a tax write-off getting caught stuffing national secrets down
his. I hope that Sandy Berger was wearing fresh drawers and
socks during his federal shoplifting jaunts. I wouldn't want
archivists or legitimate government researchers picking up any
organisms off the documents he returned.
Nicholas Stix can be reached at Add1dda@aol.com.
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com