The Berger Question: Another Reason to Wait For Facts

Not to let Sandy Berger off the hook or anything, but there's at least one reason to withhold judgement on what conservatives are gleefully calling "Trousergate." Right there at the scene of the crime, where one lone witness reports seeing the single action -- Berger stuffing documents into his socks -- that confirms that the former National Security Advisor was engaged in deliberate criminal activity, there's a reason to take pause: Under President Bush, the National Archives have been politicized.

Back in April, when Functional Ambivalent was just a baby, I wrote a long thing about President Bush and the National Archives. The point was the President Bush was defying a law requiring the release of Presidential documents after 12 years. The documents in question were from the Reagan Administration, including -- salivating researchers hoped --some that would expose current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's dealings with Iraq.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the presumably busy President Bush took time to sign an Executive Order that effectively nullfied the law requiring the records' release. This high-handed action angered even Congressionl Republicans, who introduced legislation to overturn the Executive Order.

While that legislation was still pending, President Bush took another unusual step: With the archives set to become a legal battleground, and without consulting the professional organizations that have always kibbitzed in the selection of an Archivist of the United States, President Bush fired the sitting Archivist and installed in his place a trustworthy Republican operative. Various organizations of milquetoasty librarians went uncharacteristically berserk, convinced that the new archivist had been hired to help President Bush keep the records of the Reagan and GHW Bush Administrations secret.

If the Berger story follows the normal arc, when all is said and done it will turn out to be less unambiguously horrible than it appears in the first rush of information. The media -- particualrly the blogworld -- run right to the clearest, most horrific interpretation, and then either backtrack or ignore their mistakes.

While the righties sanctimoniously use Berger to cast doubt on all Democrats' ability to keep state secrets, there are two things that argue for caution: First, it's highly convenient that this information leaked just before the Democratic Convention. True or not, whether Berger sacrificed national security to aid the Kerry campaign is going to be Topic A in Boston. The question, or some variation of it, will dominate the convention: What did Kerry know, and when did he know it? That's just the kind of distraction that Carl Rove would love, the kind of distraction he's set up in political campaigns past.

The second consideration is the fact that the most damning piece of evidence -- that Berger stuffed documents in his socks -- comes from a single, anonymous National Archives source. As CNN put it:

Law enforcement sources said archive staff members told FBI agents they saw Berger placing items in his jacket and pants, and one archive staffer told agents that Berger also placed something in his socks.

That's damnation wrought by one anonymous archive staffer in the department of the National Archives that deals with Presidential documents, a department that has already been politicized in an apparent effort to support President Bush politically.

Take away that one staffer, and what Berger did was sloppiness, or stupidity, or hubris. (Certainly, even believing Berger's own account of events, it's clear he should no longer have access to classified information.) If it turns out that the staffer was mistaken or misunderstood or even fictional, the truth doesn't come out until long after the damage to Berger and the Democrats has been done.

Anyone out there believe that's beyond the capabilities of Mr. Rove?

UPDATE: FoxNews' website is running with the socks story, assimilating it into a cascade of accusations in a way that makes it look like they were just sloppy.

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

There's no record, in fact, that Berger and his lawyer said anything about socks except that the whole accusation was ridiculous. In a CNN interview with my favorite adolescent newsguy Wolf Blitzer, Berger's lawyer about popped a vein when the socks story came up, saying:

And you know that's categorically false and ridiculous. Wolf, I have now represented Sandy in this matter since October...Not once in all the time I've represented Sandy has that allegation been made. But suddenly today or yesterday right at the eve of the 9/11 commission report suddenly these ridiculous allegations are being made. It's false and it didn't happen.

Comments

[eRobin]

I posted about that too. I was disappointed at the time that there weren't more action alerts to call Senators to ask at least one to put a hold on the nomination since that's all it would have taken to derail the thing. But, as I read the story, it seemed that the new guy, Weinstein, wouldn't take over until Jan 2005. When I first hear the story and the involvement of the Nat'l Archive, my radar pinged, but then I figured I was jumping to conclusions. But if you ask me if the Dems are shadowed everywhere they go as a matter of course, I'd say yes - and Berger would be a great target. It's probably happening quite a bit on the Hill too since so many bills are restricted access now for Dems.

[Conrad]

FoxNews? Sloppy? Get outta town.