Clinton's Legacy: Berger Should Come Clean

[Annie]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjEzOTlmNWEwZjA2M2Q3YjU0MWQ0NGZiNDVlYTM5MGU=

Clinton's Counterterrorism Record [Andy McCarthy]
President Clinton is claiming that his counterterrorism efforts have been misrepresented and deflated. One way to help get an accurate version of history — as Mark Levin and I have pointed out repeatedly over the last couple of years — goes back to the curious case of former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger.

Berger, of course, was caught in 2004 removing classified documents out of the National Archives. His reason for being there was to review the paper record in preparation for both his own and President Clinton's testimony before the 9/11 Commission.

Berger smuggled documents out of the archives, destroyed at least some of them, and apparently made false statements to investigators about what he'd done. For some reason, the Justice Department allowed him to plead guilty to a mere misdemeanor (Scooter Libby, eat your heart out!). One reason to say, "Damn Bush." Even more astoundingly, the public has never been fully apprised of the documents that were taken so we could evaluate why Berger might have done this. Not at all astoundingly, the mainstream press has been virtually silent and has never demanded disclosure.

It has been publicly reported, by the Washington Post, for example, that what Berger removed were different drafts of the "after action review" written by Richard Clarke (on whom Clinton prominently relied in his diatribe yesterday) which judged how the administration had performed in response various terror plots at the turn of the Millennium.

Did Clarke judge the administration harshly? Were there various drafts because Clarke was pressed to water down some of his original criticisms? We don't know. We've never been told.

Part of the Justice Department's justification for the kit-gloves approach to Berger's prosecution was that no harm had really been done — there were copies of even the documents Berger destroyed, so the whole paper record could be reconstructed.

Well fine. Let's see it. Sure, redact out anything that still constitutes sensitive intelligence (hard to believe there's much over five years later, but, of course, intel methods and sources shouldn't be exposed). But how come during the 9/11 Commission hearings the press agitated until the Bush White House finally gave in and disclosed all kinds of highly classified materials ... including a Presidential Daily Briefing memo — one of the most closely held intelligence products in the government — but we have still, to this day, never seen or had thoroughly explained to us what Sandy Berger took out of the National Archives?

President Clinton wants historical accuracy? By all means, let's have it.
Posted at 2:03 PM

 

[Annie]

not going the way the DNC figured:


Lots of links, video, etc:

http://newsbusters.org/node/7871

Harry Smith Taken Aback as CBS Analyst Blames Clinton for bin Laden Failures
Posted by Michael Rule on September 25, 2006 - 10:28.

Despite Bill Clinton's angry protestations, the bulk of the blame for America's failure to catch or kill Osama bin Laden lies squarely on the Clinton administration, at least according to terrorism analyst Michael Scheuer.

Scheuer's words, delivered on today's edition of CBS's "Early Show," must have come as a shock for co-host Harry Smith since the liberal media's usual refrain on bin Laden is to blame Bush for the failure to kill him back in the early days of the Afghanistan campaign.

That just isn't the case, Scheuer argued, implicitly criticizing the press.

"The former president seems to be able to deny facts with impugnity. Bin Laden is alive today because Mr. Clinton, Mr. Sandy Berger, and Mr. Richard Clarke refused to kill him," he said.

Video clip (1:34): Real (2.5 MB at 225 kbps) or Windows Media (2.9 MB at 256 kbps), plus MP3 audio (443 KB). Read on for transcript of the segment.

On Monday's "Early Show", co-host Harry Smith talked with Scheuer about the war in Iraq and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Smith was shocked when Scheuer laid the blame at the feet of the Clinton administration, and attempted to put the focus back on failures of the Bush Administration. Smith highlighted president Clinton's defense of his administration:

"Let's talk about what President Clinton had to say on Fox yesterday. He basically laid blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to certify or verify that Osama bin Laden was responsible for a number of different attacks. Does that ring true to you?"​

Scheuer refuted Smith’s portrayal of Clinton:

"No, sir, I don't think so. The president seems to be able, the former president seems to be able to deny facts with impugnity. Bin Laden is alive today because Mr. Clinton, Mr. Sandy Berger, and Mr. Richard Clarke refused to kill him. That's the bottom line. And every time he says what he said to Chris Wallace on Fox, he defames the CIA especially, and the men and women who risk their lives to give his administration repeated chances to kill bin Laden."
​

Smith couldn’t let these facts tarnish the Clinton legacy, so he attempted to change the subject back to the Bush Administration:

"All right, is the Bush administration any less responsible for not finishing the job in Tora Bora?"​

Scheuer acknowledged that there is plenty of blame to go around for not getting bin Laden, but asserted that Clinton bears most of it:

"Oh, I think there's plenty of blame to go around, sir, but the fact of the matter is that the Bush Administration had one chance that they botched, and the Clinton Administration had eight to ten chances that they refused to try..."
​

Scheuer continued his response and accused President Clinton of lying to the American people:

"...But it's just, it's an incredible kind of situation for the American people over the weekend to hear their former president mislead them."
​

Scheuer’s points may have hit at Clinton too hard for Smith, as Smith used his final word to assert that President Bush is responsible too:

"And, and, and with this also further revelation that, in fact, the war in Iraq has only exacerbated the terrorist situation."
​

Scheuer’s facts about the failures of the Clinton administration in catching bin Laden are largely ignored by the media, but keep them in mind the next time a reporter starts hammering the Bush administration because Osama bin Laden is still at large.

Transcript of the relevant portion of the interview follows:

Harry Smith: "Elizabeth Palmer live in Pakistan this morning, thank you. I'm going to go back now to Michael Scheuer once again. Let's talk about what President Clinton had to say on Fox yesterday. He basically laid blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to certify or verify that Osama bin Laden was responsible for a number of different attacks. Does that ring true to you?"

Michael Scheuer: "No, sir, I don't think so. The president seems to be able, the former president seems to be able to deny facts with impugnity. Bin Laden is alive today because Mr. Clinton, Mr. Sandy Berger, and Mr. Richard Clarke refused to kill him. That's the bottom line. And every time he says what he said to Chris Wallace on Fox, he defames the CIA especially, and the men and women who risk their lives to give his administration repeated chances to kill bin Laden."
​

Harry Smith: "Alright, is the Bush administration any less responsible for not finishing the job in Tora Bora?"

Michael Scheuer: "Oh, I think there's plenty of blame to go around, sir, but the fact of the matter is that the Bush Administration had one chance that they botched, and the Clinton Administration had eight to ten chances that they refused to try. At least at Tora Bora our forces were on the ground. We didn't push the point. But it's just, it's an incredible kind of situation for the American people over the weekend to hear their former president mislead them."

Harry Smith: "And, and, and with this also further revelation that, in fact, the war in Iraq has only exacerbated the terrorist situation. Michael Scheurer, we thank you so much for your time this morning."​

 

[Emmett]

on the part of Republicans to make BC look bad I'm sure. LMAO


They just didn't have enough fun with him while his wife was president!

 

[insein]

Seriously though, Nixon was impeached and would have gone to jail for theft of "party" secrets in an opponents headquarters had Ford not pardoned him. Yet Sandy Berger steals "national security" secrets, destroys them and chalks it up to "sloppiness" and nary a word of ill doing is made other than conservative pundits. Why hasnt the Attorney General read him his rights and thrown him a jail cell to await trial for treason? This is beyond ridiculous.