Finally, Clarity about Sandy Berger...

Nick Gillespie | September 9, 2005

We now know the answer to the query that once bedazzled a nation: Did Sandy Berger stuff classified documents in his pants or was he just happy to see us?

The answer:

Former National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger was fined $50,000 by a federal judge yesterday for illegally taking classified documents out of the National Archives by stuffing them in his pants.

Whole account here.

Compared to FEMA fuckup and resume padder Mike "Brownie" Brown, Berger's antics seem almost comic. Then again, Clinton's national security apparatus and foreign policy was not so funny either. Not a lot of humor in politics these days, except for the darkest sort.

Comments

|9.9.05 @ 10:25AM|#

Not a lot of humor indeed. I finally saw Hotel Rwanda last night. Listening to Maddie Albright dance around the word "genocide" on the radio was heartbreaking.

|9.9.05 @ 10:35AM|#

The Times, and the Boston Globe article this morning, both make somewhat opaque allustions to Berger "destroying" or "cutting up" documents.

IIRC, he was cutting up copies of the originals, not the originals themselves, and that all of the originals had been accounted for. That's a pretty big distinction. Destroying the originals of classified national security documents would get a lot more than $50,000 and probation, no?

Jeff P.|9.9.05 @ 10:48AM|#

I expect a memoir called Trousers of Dissent. It will be made into an Adam Sandler movie called The Pantload.

|9.9.05 @ 11:10AM|#

As usual the big guy gets away with a handslap. I have trouble believing any other run of the mill security clearance holder would be cooling his butt in a federal prison for less than a year for doing something like this.

|9.9.05 @ 11:33AM|#

It was no big deal. My belt buckle broke and I innocently stuffed a few unimportant papers down my pants to prevent any embarrassing incidents involving trousers around my ankles.

|9.9.05 @ 11:45AM|#

"I expect a memoir called Trousers of Dissent. It will be made into an Adam Sandler movie called The Pantload."

Ha! In these dark times, this may be about as close as we get to a Friday fun link. (Prove me wrong, Reason editors! Prove me wrong!)

G|9.9.05 @ 11:47AM|#

I wonder now who will end up falling on their sword for Bush now. Between Iraq, Plane, and now Katrina, someone will have to be the sacraficial lamb.

Blame placed rightly or not, the rabid left and the hungary press wont settle until they are fed.

|9.9.05 @ 12:30PM|#

Watch out for Hungarian jounalists.

|9.9.05 @ 12:33PM|#

The hungrarian journos are feeding on rabid leftovers.

|9.9.05 @ 6:17PM|#

Why is this not an important story? And don't tell me the hurricane, because this has barely ever been followed except on page 20 of any paper I'm aware of.

|9.9.05 @ 9:58PM|#

Big difference, Dave, between what is important and what gets ink.