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Monday, March 12, 2007
The Berger/Libby disparity
By TigerHawk at 3/12/2007 08:53:00 AM
Michael Barone, like many conservatives, wonders at the arrestingly different treatment of Scooter Libby and Sandy Berger, a topic on which many of us have written before. Unfortunately, Barone dodged the question that has dogged me since Sandy Berger got past his rather egregious violation of national security with a slap on the wrist -- a $50,000 fine, 100 hours of community service, and a temporary (and therefore meaningless) suspension of his national security clearance, the fine having been quintupled after the judge in the case expressed his outrage. Rather than worrying about Scooter Libby, who does seem to have been at best dangerously cute with the grand jury, I want to know why George W. Bush's Justice Department cut such a sweet deal with Berger (and, no, I don't think it was mere lameness).
My rank speculation is that Sandy Berger had information which would have made his trial even more painful for the Bush administration than for, well, Berger. I have no idea what that information would have been, except perhaps more detailed evidence that some Clintonite somewhere "warned" the Bush administration about al Qaeda or the specific tactics deployed on 9/11. Or perhaps Berger's defense would have required that the administration compromise information of current tactical or intelligence value, in which case the trial of Sandy Berger would have hurt the United States. Either way, it seems to me silly to complain about Libby's treatment compared to Berger's without knowing why we let Berger off with the equivalent of after-school detention.
The next question of course is, why don't we know? This is a mystery that begs for investigation by the best reporters in the Washington press corps. That our vaunted mainstream media has failed to uncover the story of Berger's absurd sentencing reflects very poorly on their ambition, their competence, or their objectivity.
