Madeleine Albright and Democracy

Once again, Madeleine Albright and Charlie Rose engaged in a "Blame America First" fest.

She was Rose's guest yesterday, plugging her latest screed, Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership.

It still boggles my mind that some people worship this inept woman. I can't believe she's considered credible. Listening to her, I can't believe that she served as the U.S. Secretary of State.

She's such a partisan hack and so anti-American.

As usual, Rose asked an idiotic, loaded question: "Has our focus on democracy led to anything other than us feeling good about ourselves?"

Albright said, "The bottom line is I happen to believe in democracy, and I think that countries are better off if people can make their own choices about their leaders."

But she went on to bash the idea of free elections.

Albright explained:

"On the democracy issue... democracy at the moment has a bad name because it's identified with military force. And it looks as though you impose democracy. I think we need to get back to where we support democracy.

Then, I think, the other issue out there is how to mitigate some of the worst parts of globalization and the gap between the rich and the poor, and then to deal with issues of environment and energy, all of which require incredible international cooperation. And that's what the next president has to do."

Good grief.

Only Jimmy Carter can outdo Albright when it comes to bashing the Bush administration and America.

Democracy has a bad name?

Really?

It's not the last, best hope of man on Earth?

If democracy is so bad then why are people from every corner of the world coming to America?

Albright says democracy is identified with military force rather than liberty.

How dare our military men and women impose freedom on oppressed people and fight tyranny!

Right.

__________________

Watch the interview here.

Sandy Bergergate

Is he advising Hillary Clinton or isn't he?

Almost a month ago, it was noted by Michael Hirsh of Newsweek that Sandy Berger was an integral part of Hillary's campaign advisory team.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has relied largely on her husband and a triumvirate of senior officials from his presidency—former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke and former national-security adviser Sandy Berger (who tries to keep a low profile after pleading guilty in 2005 to misdemeanor charges of taking classified material without authorization).

Yesterday, another report stated that Berger was back, this one by Bill Sammon in The Examiner.

Sandy Berger, who stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, destroyed them and lied to investigators, is now an adviser to presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Berger, who was fired from John Kerry’s presidential campaign when the scandal broke in 2004, has assumed a similar role in Clinton’s campaign, even though his security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. This is raising eyebrows even among Clinton’s admirers.

Hillary Clinton's camp is denying that Bill Clinton's former national security adviser Sandy Berger is officially part of the former First Lady's presidential campaign team.

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton claims Sandy Berger has "no official role" in her campaign after Republican lawmakers blasted her Monday upon learning that Clinton's campaign is taking advice from the former top aide to President Bill Clinton who admitted stealing classified documents and disposing them.

...The New York Democrat's campaign downplayed the fact, saying Monday that Berger is an informal, unpaid adviser to the campaign, something ascribed to many people associated with the campaign. Berger has been a longtime friend of both Clintons.

"He has no official role in the campaign," spokesman Blake Zeff said.

Aides to the New York Democrat were unapologetic about Berger's advisory role, noting he is not a central figure but has valuable and welcome input that he is providing voluntarily.

Yeah, yeah, right.

No official role, blah, blah, blah.

I don't buy it that he's not a central figure.

Good grief, look at what Berger did for the Clintons.

On the evening of Oct. 2, 2003, former White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stashed highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office, according to a newly disclosed government investigation.

The documents he took detailed how the Clinton administration had responded to the threat of terrorist attacks at the end of 1999. Berger removed a total of five copies of the same document without authorization and later used scissors to destroy three before placing them in his office trash, the National Archives inspector general concluded in a Nov. 4, 2005, report.

After archives officials accused him of taking the documents, Berger told investigators, he "tried to find the trash collector but had no luck." But instead of admitting he had removed them deliberately -- by stuffing them in his suit pockets on multiple occasions -- Berger initially said he had removed them by mistake.

It gets even weirder.

In September and October, Berger was able to sneak papers -- slight variations of a report titled "Millennium Alert After Action Review," which looked at U.S. vulnerabilities to terrorists, as well as the notes he took from other classified documents -- into his pockets, the report said, because an unnamed senior official left the room while Berger made or took phone calls.

Although one archives official claimed to have seen Berger fiddling with what appeared to be a piece of paper "rolled around his ankle and underneath his pant leg," Berger told investigators he was merely pulling up his socks, which he said "frequently fall down." He said "this story was absurd and embarrassing."

Berger said that after spending hours at the archives on Oct. 2, he took a walk outside past a construction fence to leave four classified copies of the millennium document beneath a trailer. He later explained that he needed to return to the building for several additional hours of work and was worried that guards would see the documents bulging in his suit.

Berger got caught partly because suspicious archives employees secretly numbered the millennium document copies they showed him in October. When an official challenged him by telephone on Oct. 4, he turned over two copies of the millennium document that he said he had accidentally kept.

Of course Republicans blasted Hillary for utilizing the services of Berger.

HE'S A CROOK.

And of course, the Hillary campaign is pretending that Berger isn't a central figure in its advisory team.

I guess that technically may be true.

It would depend on what the meaning of "central" is. And it would depend on what the meaning of every other word is, including "is."

I'm glad Republicans commented on Hillary and Berger. Regardless of Berger's role in Hillary's campaign, I think Republicans should be calling attention to the Berger incident. When a former national security adviser hides highly classified documents stolen from the National Archives at a construction site, that's a problem.

It's important to remind Americans what a Hillary Clinton presidency would entail. In many ways, it would be a resumption of the Bill Clinton era. It would be a third term. It would be a continuation of all that sleaze.

I think it's embarrassing that the Hillary campaign is downplaying Berger's role as adviser, saying he's just an unpaid, informal helper, a volunteer.

Who cares if Berger is supposedly serving only as an unpaid buddy?

The status that's relevant is that he's a crook and Hillary has him as part of her inner circle.

That matters.

Sandy Berger Advises Hillary

Wordsmith at Sparks from the Anvil comments on Hillary Clinton's campaign helpers.

Adding Sandy Berger to her team shows a serious lapse in judgment, almost as bad as when Bill chose to get involved with Monica Lewinsky after that first peek at her thong.

Read more at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Dropping the Gay Bomb

This is no joke.

It's not a piece from The Onion.

WASHINGTON -- The Air Force on Tuesday confirmed a report that in 1994 a military researcher requested $7.5 million to develop a non-lethal "love bomb" that would chemically alter the state of mind of enemy troops and make them want to have sex with each other rather than fight.

Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col. Cathy Reardon said the idea was proposed by an Air Force researcher at a lab at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas, but it was rejected by the Defense Department. Officials noted that the Air Force is constantly considering funding proposals.

No money was spent, Reardon said, and no such weapons are currently being considered. The goal was to create a non lethal weapon to be used against enemy troops.

First reported by KPIX-TV in San Francisco, the discovery of the "gay bomb" proposal came from a Freedom of Information Act request made by Edward Hammond of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, a watchdog group that tracks military spending.

As part of the military's goal of developing non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

"Distasteful"?

That's making a value judgment on homosexuality.

Let's see... 1994.

This bizarre proposal was born during the Clinton administration.

Oops. You didn't ask. I'm sorry that I told.

Abandoning Alberto Gonzales

What is wrong with the Republicans?

I don't get it. I really don't.

Why are Democrats, and now a Republican, calling for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign?

It's nuts.

Why aren't Republicans exposing the Democrats as the deceivers and complete frauds that they are?

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire on Wednesday became the first Republican in Congress to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' dismissal, hours after President Bush expressed confidence in his embattled Cabinet officer.

Gonzales has been fending off Democratic demands for his firing in the wake of disclosures surrounding the ousters of eight U.S. attorneys — dismissals Democrats have characterized as a politically motivated purge.

Support from many Republicans had been muted, but there was no outright GOP call for his dismissal until now.

"I think the president should replace him," Sununu said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think the attorney general should be fired."

I don't understand why support for Gonzales from members of his party has been muted; and I certainly don't understand why Sununu would call for him to be fired.

It's absolutely ludicrous.

This editorial from The Washington Times brings some perspective to the insanity.

The only thing stranger than watching congressional Democrats scold the Bush administration for firing eight U.S. attorneys is the response from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He's now "accepting responsibility" for a Democratic campaign to paint Republicans as unfriendly to civil rights. We rarely criticize the Bush administration for failing to stand up for its executive prerogatives (except on immigration). But Mr. Gonzales is enabling Congress to walk all over the president's agenda at the Department of Justice for reasons we can't fathom.

U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president who appoints them. President Bush, like Republican and Democratic presidents before him have done, can hire, fire or rehire when he chooses. This includes firing attorneys who fail to fit within the president's policy agenda. If he decides to hire prosecutors who vigorously pursue voting fraud, and fire others whom he believes spend too much time on civil-rights litigation, that's his prerogative. His judgment can be properly assessed at a subsequent election. Congress confirms U.S. attorney nominees, but for Congress to act as if appointments and firings are a congressional prerogative is an attempt to intimidate the executive.

...Democratic and Republican administrations alike use U.S. attorney appointments to groom top political and legal talent. These are appointed positions whose work bears directly on a president's effectiveness. The Clinton administration pink-slipped every U.S. attorney except one in its first term -- including one attorney investigating Dan Rostenkowski, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and a powerful Clinton ally. The "political" nature of these current firings doesn't come close to those of Bill Clinton. The point of this Democratic exercise is less to seize an executive prerogative than to paint Republicans as hostile to civil rights and to attempt to paint every act of the Bush administration as scandalous. Based on the administration response, this has not been difficult.

The firings are not a scandal.

THERE'S NO SCANDAL HERE THAT BEGINS TO RISE TO THE LEVEL OF GONZALES BEING DISMISSED FROM OFFICE.

There is simply no reason for anyone to be calling for Gonzales to resign or be fired.

If ever an Attorney General should have been canned, it was Janet Reno.

She gave the order that resulted in the deaths of 79 people, including 25 children, at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.

One could easily consider the attack on the compound to be a violation of civil rights.



And then there was Reno's heavy-handed method of dealing with six-year-old Elian Gonzalez, stripping him from his relatives in Florida and sending him back to Cuba after his mother had died trying to bring her son to America.



Reno came under criticism and rightfully so; but the Dems didn't abandon her and neither did her boss Bill Clinton.

And let's not forget what Reno did when she assumed office. She axed all 93 U.S. attorneys, every single one. As the editorial states, some were in the middle of investigations that had political ramifications.

In a 1998 article for National Review, Robert Bork provides more insight:

In the history of the Republic, the names of Bill Clinton and Janet Reno will be forever linked, a prospect that ought to appall Miss Reno. That is entirely due to her efforts to preserve the President from his own follies, to use a polite word. Bill Clinton heads what is probably the most corrupt Administration ever, while Miss Reno has been called the worst of all Clinton's Cabinet appointments. From his point of view, of course, she may be the best, which comes to much the same thing.

Miss Reno's only visible qualifications for the post of attorney general were two: she is a woman and she had been a prosecutor. The first characteristic was indisputable, although, in any non-feminized era, it would have been irrelevant. The second seemed heartening, but it did not prepare her for Washington. Coming from obscurity, she must have been caught off guard by the rampant corruption into which she was thrust. So varied and unceasing have been this Administration's infractions of law that Miss Reno resembles a desperate tennis player, running from side to side of the court and from net to baseline in a frantic effort to hold down the score. Unfortunately for her White House coach, she is becoming winded and wobbly-legged.

She was not in charge from the beginning. Upon taking office, in an unexplained departure from the practice of recent Administrations, Miss Reno suddenly fired all 93 U.S. attorneys. She said the decision had been made in conjunction with the White House. Translation: The President ordered it. Just as the best place to hide a body is on a battlefield, the best way to be rid of one potentially troublesome attorney is to fire all of them. The U.S. attorney in Little Rock was replaced by a Clinton protege. The long-running Waco emergency that culminated in the deaths of eighty Branch Davidian men, women, and children again proved that Janet Reno was not in charge in the Justice Department. Webster Hubbell, Hillary's former law partner in Little Rock and Bill's man at Justice, coordinated tactics with the White House. The President did not even talk to his attorney general throughout the crisis.

Read the complete article.

It's worthwhile to compare Reno and Gonzales.

It makes the calls for his resignation look ridiculous.

What's more ridiculous?

The fact that Republicans don't have the cojones to stand up to the idiot Democrats is even more embarrassing than the unfounded uproar over the firings of the U.S. attorneys.

Why aren't the Republicans laughing at the Dems for getting bent out of shape over NOTHING?

Instead, they bow to the Dem fools, like hypocrites Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton.

Hillary has actually started an online petition calling for Gonzales to resign.

I join Senator Clinton in calling on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. He fired several U.S. attorneys for political reasons and then repeatedly and falsely claimed they were fired for performance issues. It is time for him to step down.

That really is total crap. What a hypocrite!

I think I can't be shocked anymore by how low Bill and Hillary Clinton will go, but then one of them does something that manages to stun me.

How the Republicans have acted doesn't shock me. It does disappoint me. No, it angers me.

The Republicans should be ashamed, not for what Gonzales did but for what they haven't done -- STAND UP AND QUIT APPEASING THE DEMOCRATS.

Bergermeister Meisterberger

'Tis the season for Christmas TV specials.

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town does not rate as one of my favorites. It's a Rankin/Bass stop motion animated special, the same team that brought us Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I think it's really rather strange and kind of creepy.

Fred Astaire makes for a pleasant enough narrator, but the other characters in the special are weird. Red-haired Kris Kringle and that trampy-looking Jessica and the villainous Burgermeister Meisterburger are odd players in the bizarre story of the origins of Santa Claus.


Burgermeister Meisterburger

If you're looking for a story that has a creepy character and a strange plot, you don't need to look to a decades old Christmas special.

New details have been made available in the Sandy Berger "Dox in Sox" affair.

It's not a Christmas story, but it does have Sandy Bergermeister Meisterberger.

And if it weren't so serious -- dealing with national security, obstructing the work of the 9/11 Commission, covering up for the Clinton administration -- it would be a much more entertaining tale than Santa Claus is Comin' to Town and offering many more laughs, too.


Sandy Berger(meister Meisterberger)

From The Washington Post:

On the evening of Oct. 2, 2003, former White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stashed highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office, according to a newly disclosed government investigation.

The documents he took detailed how the Clinton administration had responded to the threat of terrorist attacks at the end of 1999. Berger removed a total of five copies of the same document without authorization and later used scissors to destroy three before placing them in his office trash, the National Archives inspector general concluded in a Nov. 4, 2005, report.

After archives officials accused him of taking the documents, Berger told investigators, he "tried to find the trash collector but had no luck." But instead of admitting he had removed them deliberately -- by stuffing them in his suit pockets on multiple occasions -- Berger initially said he had removed them by mistake.

Incredible, isn't it?

What was Berger thinking?

The fact that Berger, one of President Bill Clinton's closest aides from 1997 to 2001, illicitly removed the documents is well-known: A federal judge in September 2005 ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine for his actions and forfeit his security clearance for three years.

Right. It is well-known, but the lib media don't seem to have much interest in digging deeper.

There's little investigative reporting on the incident.

Here is some information on the efforts by the Landmark Legal Foundation to find out more details about what the Bergermeister stole from the National Archives.

What Berger did, and the ham-handed and comical methods by which he did it, are freshly detailed in the National Archives report, which the Associated Press obtained first under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Although the report reiterates that Berger's main motive was to prepare himself for testifying before a commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, it makes clear that he not only sought to study the documents but also destroyed some copies and -- when initially confronted -- denied he had done so.

It's as though AP obtained the report to make it appear as if it were on top of the story.

I think the intention is really to bury it, a "let's move on" tactic, nothing to see here.

His lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said in a statement yesterday that Berger "considers this matter closed, and he is pleased to have moved on."

The matter isn't closed. Naturally, Berger wants it to be closed, but the Landmark Legal Foundation doesn't look at it that way.

...In the statement, Breuer emphasized that the Justice Department concluded that other copies of the documents at issue existed and that they were provided to the Sept. 11 commission. He also said the Justice Department affirmed that Berger had no intent to hide the contents.

Huh?

No intent to hide the contents?

He certainly intended to hide the documents. He went to extreme lengths to sneak out docs, destroy them, and lie about what he did.

Why did Berger stash "highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office"?

Why did he cut up documents with a scissors?

He was doing a lot of sneaking around considering he supposedly had nothing to hide.

...In September and October, Berger was able to sneak papers -- slight variations of a report titled "Millennium Alert After Action Review," which looked at U.S. vulnerabilities to terrorists, as well as the notes he took from other classified documents -- into his pockets, the report said, because an unnamed senior official left the room while Berger made or took phone calls.

Although one archives official claimed to have seen Berger fiddling with what appeared to be a piece of paper "rolled around his ankle and underneath his pant leg," Berger told investigators he was merely pulling up his socks, which he said "frequently fall down." He said "this story was absurd and embarrassing."

Can't Berger afford longer, better fitting socks?

What about sock garters?

Berger said that after spending hours at the archives on Oct. 2, he took a walk outside past a construction fence to leave four classified copies of the millennium document beneath a trailer. He later explained that he needed to return to the building for several additional hours of work and was worried that guards would see the documents bulging in his suit.

So Bergermeister, are those classified documents in your suit or are you just happy to see me?

Who puts classified documents beneath a trailer???

UNBELIEVABLE!

Berger got caught partly because suspicious archives employees secretly numbered the millennium document copies they showed him in October. When an official challenged him by telephone on Oct. 4, he turned over two copies of the millennium document that he said he had accidentally kept.

I don't know why Berger isn't in jail.

I bet he wouldn't be bending over to pull up his socks there.

Pretender Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright was back for yet another interview on Charlie Rose's show.

Rose treated her as if she were infallible. I find that just plain goofy.

Of course, Rose gave Albright ample opportunity to criticize President Bush and attack the administration's foreign policy.

Going to Albright for perspective and wisdom on U.S. foreign policy is as ridiculous as turning to Jimmy Carter for advice on how a president should handle a hostage crisis.

Albright tossed out plenty of gems.

On the War in Iraq:

"Iraq in many ways has shown the limitations of our power."

"This has put into question what American power can achieve."

"It was a badly implemented use of American power."

"I think [Iraq] is a disaster."

Albright, fan of Kofi Annan, was doing her best to slam Bush and his administration and take America down a few notches in the process.

She did go into CYA mode, trying to account for all the statements she made during the Clinton era about the danger that Saddam Hussein posed to us and to the world.

Albright said, "I actually believe that there were weapons of mass destruction...but I didn't think they were an imminent threat."

Albright directly countered one of the favorite talking points of her comrades on the Left -- Bush LIED about WMD.

She clearly said he did not lie. She believes Saddam had them.

Regarding the war, Albright said, "I understood the why. I didn't understand the why now and the what next."

Albright declared, "It was a war of choice, not of necessity."

Was Bosnia a "war of necessity"?

Hmmm.

She babbled about terrorism as Rose pitched ultra-soft softball questions.

"We can't take sides in this."

"We don't know enough about Muslims. We can't be in the middle of that."

"Islamofacism – bad word."

It's precisely that sort of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" approach to terrorism that serves to foster terrorism.

Albright was commenting on the insurgency in Iraq, but her argument that ignorance about Islam means that we should disengage is just nuts.

On the Iraq Study Group:

"I think it has great value."

"But everything's a little late."

"What I have a problem with is we are sinking fast here."

"It moves in generally the right direction."

"Talking to one's enemies is a good idea."

Albright complained, "The neocons and the far Right called it surrender."

She was quick to toss the "neocon" label out and point fingers at what she called the "far Right."

Rose didn't say anything about Albright being a lib or on the far Left, or about her being weak on terror.

I really didn't expect him to point that out. In fact, I would have been shocked if he did.

Why is what this woman has to say given any credence at all?

The clueless Albright is no foreign policy genius. She proved that.

What did her eight years serving in various capacities for the Clinton administration, and her four years as Secretary of State get us?

The simple answer:

DISASTER

More specifically:

Repeated terrorist attacks, on American soil and American interests abroad.

A strengthened al Qaeda.

A nuclear North Korea.

A Bosnia quagmire, meaning no exit strategy there.

Why listen to Albright?

I can't imagine.

Spying on Diana

I'm not an anglophile. I've never been a royal watcher.

I certainly was saddened by Princess Diana's tragic death, but I didn't fall apart. I didn't wake up before dawn to watch her televised funeral live. I didn't run out and buy Elton John's "Goodbye England's Rose" version of "Candle in the Wind."

Diana's death was tragic. She was young and her sons were left without their mother.

Very sad.

I really have no on-going interest in her life or the circumstances of her death, but this is intriguing.

Why was the U.S. Secret Service listening in on Princess Diana's phone conversations?

What possible reason could there have been for the government to know what she was saying?

Very strange.

Although Diana was not an American citizen, the U.S. didn't seem very concerned about treading on her rights and civil liberties. (I hope Russ Feingold is taking note. George W. Bush wasn't president at the time.)

Why did the Clinton administration bug Diana's phone without the approval of the British?

That's really odd.

CBS reports:

It's long been rumored that her work as anti-land mine campaigner brought her to the attention of the CIA, reports CBS News foreign correspondent Shiela MacVicar. The report will confirm the existence of the files, but does not reveal their contents, or offer an explanation.

That's weird.

Being anti-land mine would hardly warrant bugging her phone.

I wonder if it had something to do with Bill.

Did his enquiring mind want to know what Diana was saying?

Janet Reno

Janet Reno, Bill Clinton's disastrous attorney general, is following in the footsteps of the classless and incompetent Madeleine Albright.

Like Albright, Reno has decided to make a high profile move and openly attack the sitting president.

If God forbid a Dem is elected president in 2008, can you imagine Bush administration officials behaving so badly?

I can't.

From The Washington Post:

Former attorney general Janet Reno has taken the unusual step of openly criticizing the Bush administration's anti-terrorism strategy -- joining seven other former Justice Department officials in warning that the indefinite detention of U.S. terrorism suspects could become commonplace unless the courts intervene.

In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the case of alleged enemy combatant Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the former prosecutors assert that criminal courts are well equipped to prosecute terrorism suspects while guaranteeing the constitutional rights of defendants arrested on U.S. soil.

Reno, reached at her Florida home yesterday, said she would let the brief "speak for itself. I've been following this, and it reflects my concerns about the detention and treatment of people who have been determined to be enemy combatants in a manner that is not clear how it is being done."

In their brief, Reno and the other former Justice Department officials said: "The government is essentially asserting the right to hold putative enemy combatants arrested in the United States indefinitely whenever it decides not to prosecute those people criminally -- perhaps because it would be too difficult to obtain a conviction, perhaps because a motion to suppress evidence would raise embarrassing facts about the government's conduct, or perhaps for other reasons."

The filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is a highly unusual move for Reno. She has generally maintained a low profile since leaving the helm of the Justice Department in 2001 and has said little publicly about the policies of her successors, John D. Ashcroft and Alberto R. Gonzales.

Remember when President George H.W. Bush's attorneys general, Dick Thornburgh and William P. Barr, ripped Reno for her handling of Ruby Ridge and Waco?

Remember how they went on the record and publicly criticized her for making decisions that led to the deaths of 76 Branch Davidians, including 27 children?

No?

That's understandable, because IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

Reno's predecessors didn't publicly criticize her, though she certainly deserved to be.

Gonzales defended the administration's detention and surveillance policies in a weekend speech at the Air Force Academy, telling cadets that it is a "myth" that civil liberties have been hampered by anti-terrorism strategies.

Didn't Reno do enough damage to the country will she was attorney general?

Must she come out of hiding to challenge and undermine President Bush in the War on Terror?

I'm sure that officials of past administrations have had serious concerns about the decisions of their successors. I'm sure they've privately questioned the performances of those assuming their positions.

But why have Reno and those of her ilk determined that criticizing the current adminstration so publicly is wise?

Do they really think it's good for our country?

I think it's more likely that they are much more concerned with feeding their egos than doing what's best for the nation.

Reno was a miserable failure as attorney general. She's chosen to be a failure as a former attorney general.

Pathetic.

Sloppy Sandy Berger Update

I don't want to be sloppy.

I don't want this story to get lost, the way Sandy Berger stole, lost, and destroyed documents from the National Archives.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A group of House Republicans called Wednesday for a congressional investigation into the improper handling of classified documents by President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger.
Berger admitted last year that he deliberately took classified documents out of the National Archives in 2003 and destroyed some of them at his office. He pleaded guilty in federal court to one charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material and was fined $50,000.

Ten lawmakers led by House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R- Calif., and Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., released a letter calling for the House Government Reform Committee to investigate.

They asked the committee to determine whether any documents were missing from Clinton administration terrorism records, to review security measures for classified documents and to seek testimony from Berger.

...At issue is a strange sequence of events in which Berger admitted to sneaking classified documents out of the National Archives in his suit, later destroying some of them and then lying about it. The Bush administration disclosed the investigation in July 2004, just days before the Sept. 11 commission issued its final report.

Eventually, the truth will come out, just as classifed documents were pulled out of Berger's socks.

Bill Clinton is probably practicing his finger-wagging moves right now.

_______________________________

Sample Sloppy Berger's highlight reel here, here, and here.

If It's Sunday, It's Anti-Bush Spin

I used to think that Tim Russert was a competent interviewer. Now, I think he's a partisan hack.

In my view, he has managed to turn Meet the Press into a propaganda arm for the Democratic National Committee.

Although Russert has always been easier on Dems than on Republicans, at one time he was more balanced in his questioning. That's changed. Russert has taken on the role of an anti-Bush Administration activist.

On today's program, Russert directed a Bush-bash fest with Bill Clinton legacy spinmeister Madeleine Albright and useful tool Lindsey Graham.

First, it's ridiculous to believe that a RINO like Graham was booked as a guest to speak in support of the Bush Administration.

It seemed that when Graham wasn't attacking Bush and the White House, he was backpedaling and apologizing for offering support to the President in the past.

Russert graciously set Albright up to say: Bush did a miserable job in Iraq; Bush misled the country with faulty intelligence in making the case for war; Bush and Cheney support torture; and Republicans have poisoned the political climate, with the RNC's White Flag ad as a case in point.

For the most part, Graham agreed with Albright on every point. Occasionally, he would present an opposing view. This happened when Albright would say that she agreed completely with what Graham had just said. It was as if a little bell would go off in Graham's head, signaling that he had been too anti-Bush Administration in his remarks. Only then would he criticize the Dems.

For example, Russert showed an edited bit of the RNC's "Retreat and Defeat" ad. Graham said that the ad should be pulled. He ran down the list of Dems who have claimed our troops have not made progress in Iraq and called for retreat. Graham then went on to characterize them as patriots.

Albright jumped in to say that she was in complete agreement with Graham, that the attack methods being used by the Republicans are shameful. At that point, the bell went off for Graham. He then tacked on that the Dems are not blameless. He said that Dems haven't helped matters by calling the President a liar.

Overall, Graham consistently gave far too little, far too late. Throughout his appearance, his defense of the President was extremely limp.

Graham also went off on the torture issue, insisting that the U.S. must stop the torturing of prisoners.

(By the way, does the U.S. have a meat grinder for human flesh at any of its terrorist detention facilities? As a matter of policy, does the U.S. cut off heads, cut off limbs, cut out tongues, or gouge out eyes?

The term "torture" is bandied about, but it's not clearly defined. Do U.S. military personnel routinely practice "torture" as the Dems and RINOs claim?)

The assumption was that currently the U.S. regularly engages in torture tactics. No challenge of that assumption was made. For instance, there was no one to point out the reasoning behind not wanting to limit what approach can be used when dealing with a terrorist under the ticking bomb scenario, something that even John McCain has acknowledged would demand tough measures.

Too bad Dick Durbin wasn't there to add some spice to the discussion by calling Americans the keepers of gulags.

I think for a moment Albright thought she would not have to answer for statements she made in 1998 about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed.

Russert did read a quote from Albright's book. It rather weakly stated that she believed Iraq was a danger to the U.S. Albright quickly covered that by saying the Clinton Administration effectively dealt with the Iraq problem by sanctions and strategic bombing.

Naturally, Russert did not challenge her, and neither did Graham.

Albright did not have to account for her hawkish stance in 1998 and the litany of remarks she made back then about Saddam possessing weapons of mass destruction.

On February 18, 1998, at a town hall meeting at Ohio State, Albright said:

For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face. And it is a threat against which we must, and will, stand firm.

In discussing Iraq, we begin by knowing that Saddam Hussein, unlike any other leader, has used weapons of mass destruction even against his own people. In fact, he is a repeat offender, having used them both in the battle and against his people.

...First of all, I'd like to repeat and say that the United States does not challenge Iraq's territorial integrity, nor do we want to see the Iraqi people suffer any further. Our problem, and the world's problem, is with Iraq's leaders. Today those leaders have a choice: they can allow UN inspections to proceed on the world's terms, or they can invite serious military strikes on ours.

At the same forum, Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen also presented a strong case for military action against Iraq.

From the meeting's transcript:

Saddam Hussein, as Secretary Albright has indicated, has developed an arsenal of deadly chemical and biological weapons. He has used these weapons repeatedly against his own people, as well as Iran. I have a picture, which I believe CNN can show on its cameras, but here is a picture taken of an Iraqi mother and child, killed by Iraqi nerve gas. This is what I would call "Madonna and Child, Saddam Hussein Style."

(Shouting.)

Now, the United Nations believes that he still has very large quantities of VX. VX is a substance, a nerve agent, which is so deadly that a single drop can kill you within a couple of minutes. Anthrax is a biological agent that kills people within five to seven hours seven days, rather, after they breathe an amount the size of a single dust particle. If you were to take a five- pound bag of anthrax, properly dispersed, it would kill half the population of Columbus, Ohio.

Now, at the time of 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, he had also loaded chemical and biological weapons into artillery shells, missile warheads as well. He was working on a missile that would have a range of nearly 2,000 miles. That means it could travel all the way from Baghdad to as far as Paris, and perhaps other capitals in Europe, and one day, perhaps, even to the United States. He has fired these missiles against four of his neighbors: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iran and Israel.

And because of the threats posed by Saddam and his deadly arsenal, the United Nations insisted that he eliminate all of these weapons of mass destruction following the Gulf War.

...But Saddam has delayed; he has duped; he has deceived the inspectors from the very first day on the job. I have another chart which shows exactly what I'm talking about. From the very beginning, he declared he had not offensive biological weapons programs. Then, when confronted with evidence following the defection of his son-in-law, he admitted they had produced more than 2100 gallons of anthrax. The UN inspectors fear that he may have produced as much as three times that amount.

...These inspectors, again, they've done a good job, but their work isn't over; and that's why we need them back on the ground, searching for these deadly weapons that Saddam has used in the past and could use again in the future. We hope that Iraq will agree to let the inspectors do their work, but if Saddam refuses, we're prepared to use military force to achieve that which he will not allow the inspectors
to do.

Our military goal would be to deliver a serious blow that would significantly diminish Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, the threat, and reduce his ability to threaten his neighbors.

Why didn't Graham call Albright on her effort to rewrite history and to distance herself from the reality of the Clinton Administration's position on Iraq?

Perhaps he hadn't had his morning coffee and wasn't up for the fight. Maybe he's a spineless RINO and accordingly has no interest in speaking up for the President or his party. It's possible that Graham was coached by John McCain to let Albright and Russert deliver as many blows to Bush as possible, and Graham was willing to take the fall.

I don't know why Graham chose to aid Russert in his anti-Bush Administration campaign. In any case, Graham helped the Dems in their drive to hurt Bush's credibility.

Why did Russert give Albright the opportunity to trash the current Administration without holding her accountable for her words and actions during her tenure as the Secretary of State?

That's simple. He's a partisan hack.

Just days away from the elections in Iraq, this is all very disheartening to me.

As Joe Lieberman has said, it would be a colossal mistake to "seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory."

Apparently, Russert, Albright, and Graham are eager to make that colossal mistake.

As Samuel Johnson said in The Idler, 1758, "Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."



Let's be clear. Russert is not an objective journalist. He has a horse in this race and it's definitely not Bush.

Sometimes, it seems that it's not America.

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION KNEW!

Remember when Hillary took to the floor of the Senate waving a newspaper, the New York Post, with the headline, "BUSH KNEW"?

That was in May of 2002.

Hillary said:

"I am simply here today on the floor of this hallowed chamber to seek answers to the questions being asked by my constituents. Questions raised by one of our newspapers in New York with the headline 'Bush Knew.'

"The president knew what? My constituents would like to know the answer to that and many other questions. ... As for the president, he may not be in a position at this time to respond to all of those concerns, but he is in a position to answer some of them, including the question of why we know today, May 16, about the warning he received. Why did we not know this on April 16 or March 16 or February or January 16 or August 16 of last year?"

At the time, she and the Dems were foaming at the mouth, trying to blame the Bush administration for the 9/11 attacks.

Well.

It appears that the identities of four of the terrorists that took part in the 9/11 massacre, including Mohammed Atta, may have been known to the government---WHILE BILL CLINTON WAS IN OFFICE.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Members of the commission that uncovered the government's failures to share intelligence among agencies before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks want to know whether U.S. defense intelligence officials knew for more than a year that four of the hijackers were part of an al-Qaida cell but failed to tell law enforcement.

Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the now-disbanded commission, said Tuesday that members of the Sept. 11 commission could issue a statement by the end of the week after reviewing claims that defense intelligence officials had identified ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers.

''The 9/11 commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell,'' said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. ''Had we learned of it obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation.''

The commission's report on the terrorist attacks, released last year, traced government mistakes that allowed the hijackers to succeed. Among the problems the commission cited was a lack of coordination across intelligence agencies.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who serves as vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said a classified military intelligence unit known as ''Able Danger'' identified the men in 1999.

That's an earlier link to al-Qaida than any previously disclosed intelligence about Atta if the information, which Weldon said came from multiple intelligence sources, is true.

A group of 9/11 widows called the September 11th Advocates issued a statement Wednesday saying they were ''horrified'' to learn that further possible evidence exists, and they are disappointed the 9/11 Commission report is ''incomplete and illusory.''

''The revelation of this information demands answers that are forthcoming, clear and concise,'' the statement said. "The 9/11 attacks could have and should have been prevented."

In effect, this group of individuals is saying that the Clinton Administration is responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

With the 9/11 commission disbanded for a year under provisions of the legislation that created it, some of the panel's members have said congressional committees should investigate Weldon's assertions.

According to Weldon, Able Danger identified Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi as members of a cell the unit code-named "Brooklyn" because of some loose connections to New York City.

Weldon said that in September 2000 Able Danger recommended that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists." However, Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they said Atta and the others were in the country legally, so information on them could not be shared with law enforcement.

If the team did identify Atta and the others, it's unclear why the information wasn't forwarded. The prohibition against sharing intelligence on ''U.S. persons'' should not have applied since they were in the country on visas and did not have permanent resident status.

Why wasn't this vital information forwarded?

There was a wall in place thanks to Jamie Gorelick.



Will someone tell me what that woman was doing on the 9/11 commission?

Paul Begala Aids Conservative Movement

Since the early days of 1998, when Paul Begala popped up everywhere to insist that his boss, Bill Clinton, was being victimized by a Republican hit squad, the guy has bugged me.

It's not just what he says. It's how he says it.

Begala's address to the first-ever Campus Progress National Student Conference cements my opinion.

The conference was designed to "provide campus liberals with the tools necessary to fight the conservative movement."

How crazy is that?

If one is looking for an environment that validates and promotes leftist ideology, one needs to go no further than the nearest college campus. These young libs certainly don't need strategies for fighting conservatives ON campus, since the libs dominate the system.

Undoubtedly, this conference set out to indoctrinate an army of activists to fight conservatives outside the sheltered liberal walls of academia.

In addition to Begala, Bill Clinton attended the event. He, of course, is a hero to these young liberals.

After all, as they were coming of age, Bill helped redefine sex for them with his "oral sex isn't sex" initiative.

I digress.

CNS News reports:

A panel discussion entitled "Winning the War of Ideas" centered on topics discussed in the book "What's the Matter with Kansas" by Thomas Frank and detailed the challenges that Democrats face in persuading voters in the American heartland and elsewhere to embrace their agenda and support their candidates.

Begala's presence on the panel created a stir when he declared that Republicans had "done a p***-poor job of defending" the U.S.

Republicans, he said, "want to kill us.

"I was driving past the Pentagon when that plane hit" on Sept. 11, 2001. "I had friends on that plane; this is deadly serious to me," Begala said.

"They want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted -- that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit," Begala said. "That is bulls*** national defense, and we should say that."

If Begala thinks that line is a good weapon in his arsenal to fight off conservatives, he's more out of touch with middle America than I realized.

The Clinton administration's national security efforts involved the right blend of "experience" and "strength," Begala said, an assertion with which the 9/11 Commission apparently disagreed.

In its report, the bipartisan commission stated that "each president considered or authorized covert actions, a process that consumed considerable time -- especially in the Clinton administration -- and achieved little success beyond the collection of intelligence."

Begala also included Republican domestic policies in his sweeping criticism. The GOP, he said, "ain't had a new idea since they opposed Social Security, and guess what, they still do. ... They are beginning to figure out that there is no Soviet Union, but they still want Star Wars to stop it," Begala said.

Remember, Begala is spewing this garbage to a group of impressionable young people. He is completely distorting the truth. The Dems are the ones without ANY ideas.

As far as "Star Wars" goes, recent statements from China about nuking the U.S. makes defensive measures look awfully good right now.

Only someone like Begala would say the Strategic Defense Initiative is intended to stop the Soviet Union.

Is Begala really that stupid? Or, is he really that desperate that he's willing to throw out the truth to advance his party?

"Okay, they are utterly and completely brain-dead," echoing comments earlier this year by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who accused Republicans of being "brain dead."

That really helps to set a more civil tone in political debate, doesn't it? Right...

Frank insisted that Republicans are not quite as tough on national security as many Americans think.

...Frank defended his point...claiming that Republicans didn't see Hitler as a threat to America until Pearl Harbor.

He repeated the Democratic criticism of America's invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein "was a horrible (sic), a dictator, a butcher, a tyrant, a mass murderer -- as evil as they come," Frank said, but he added: "I don't think he was a threat to the U.S. at the time."

This Frank guy sounds like a real piece of work.

In one breath he bashes Republicans on WWII in order to show that Dems are as tough as they are on defense. In the very next breath, he illustrates that he doesn't get the War on Terror, nor does he understand the necessity of spreading freedom to oppressed people as key to peace in the world.

Making the argument that the U.S. and its coalition should have left Saddam and his henchmen alone won't do much to fight conservatism. Frank obviously doesn't understand fly-over country.

Former Clinton administration Chief of Staff John Podesta told the students that "you can fight hard for what you believe without breaking the law, without cheating and certainly without checking your morals at the door."

Is that a reference to the young libs on campuses across the country that did cheat and break the law when they took part in the corrupt New Voters Project?

In terms of checking morals at the door, it sounds like the young libs in attendance needed to do that if they were to accept any of Begala's drivel.

The Campus Progress National Student Conference probably succeeded in giving some young liberals reinforcement to hate conservatives.

However, as an effort to provide them with tactics to lure Republican voters to the Democratic side, it failed miserably.

Radical left-wing, MoveOn style rhetoric does not fight conservatism.

It serves to recruit more conservatives.

DOX IN SOX

In case you've forgotten about the crime committed by Sandy Berger, national security adviser to Clinton during his second term, here's an excerpt from an April 1, 2005, CNN report to refresh your memory:

The charging document states that between September 2 and October 2, 2003, Berger "knowingly removed classified documents from the National Archives and Records Administration and stored and retained such documents at places ... including his place of employment."

An associate of Berger told CNN the former national security adviser admitted to the Justice Department he originally took five copies of an after-action report -- one during his September 2003 visit to the Archives and four during his October 2003 trip.

When he returned to his office and compared the copies he had, he believed several were basically the same, the associate said.

He admitted to officials that he then used scissors to cut up three copies that night while at his office, they said. At first he had said he had either misplaced or unintentionally thrown them away.

When Archives officials contacted him after they realized documents were missing, he told them about the two copies he had and returned them, along with the handwritten notes he had taken, they said. He did not say anything about the three copies he had destroyed.

Clinton had asked Berger to review thousands of pages of documents related to the millennium terror plot and its aftermath for submission to the September 11th commission. While reviewing those documents, his lawyer said, Berger inadvertently took some classified documents and intentionally took handwritten notes he put together while reviewing the documents.

At the time the news of the Feds' investigation of Berger broke, when he was still denying any serious wrong-doing, the New York Daily News wrote:

The most important document Berger took was a "highly classified" assessment, written by former National Security Council aide Richard Clarke, on Clinton administration counter-terror efforts, sources said.

It included recommendations for improving efforts to thwart extremists, and one source characterized the report, stored at the National Archives in Washington, as critical of former President Bill Clinton's handling of the Millennium plots in 1999.

Berger admits he also took the notes he wrote from other documents he inspected - a violation of Archives policies - while vetting thousands of pages to be given to the 9/11 commission, his lawyer said.

An Archives staffer reported seeing the papers sticking out of a leg of Berger's pants, saying "it could have been white socks, except that [Berger] was wearing a dark suit," according to a government source.

Other reports had Berger also filling his pockets and jacket.

...Berger's attorney, Lanny Breuer, insists his client took the documents "inadvertently," and called claims that he stuffed papers in his socks "false and ridiculous" in an interview on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports."

That line from the Archives staffer about the white socks and dark suit is priceless.

Today, NewsMax learned that "sentencing for former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who pled guilty in April to stealing and destroying top secret terrorism documents from the National Archives, has been delayed."

The Justice Department gave no explanation as to why he will not be sentenced until September. Calls made to Berger's lawyer, Washington, D.C. attorney Lanny Breuer, went unreturned.

Isn't it funny how the MSM have been on a three day feeding frenzy over Karl Rove's involvement in the Valerie Plame/ Joe Wilson case, while they gave only minimal attention to the Berger crime?

Dems are definitely in full drool mode. Kerry's "Fire Rove Now" petition is just one example. He wrote, "In the interests of national security, President Bush should fire Karl Rove."

This is laughable.

According to Kerry and the libs, Rove put our national security at risk even though it appears that he broke no laws.

Sandy Berger, on the other hand, admits to lying and destroying copies of classified documents that he smuggled out of the National Archives.

Do the libs think Berger endangered our national security? Of course not.

It's so ironic that Kerry is leading the lynch mob to get Rove.

He didn't get bent out of shape or start a petition when Berger, his adviser on foreign policy and national security during his failed presidential campaign, was "sloppy" with classifed information.

When Berger resigned from the campaign amid the scandal, Kerry issued a statement calling Berger a "friend" who has "tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction."

There's nothing honorable about smuggling classified documents out of the National Archives, cutting them up with scissors, and then lying to authorities.

In terms of our national security, how can anyone begin to put Rove's comment about a desk-bound employee of the CIA in the same category with Berger's theft and destruction of sensitive documents?

The Devil Made North Korea Do It

Why does North Korea continue to work to build up a nuclear arsenal?

It's because North Korea gets no respect from Washington.

This might sound like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or Mad Dr. Dean came up with that explanation.

Actually, it's Kim Jong Il's regime that is using that line. I know it's confusing. The Democrats do tend to tout the North Korean party line occasionally.

AP reports:

N. Korea Blames U.S. for Nuke Program

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Wednesday it would not need nuclear weapons if the United States treated it like a friend, as the isolated nation joined South Korea for high-level reconciliation talks.

The bilateral meeting was shadowed by the international standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions.

"If the United States treats the North in a friendly manner, we will possess not one nuclear weapon," the North Korean delegation said, according to Kim Chun-shick, spokesman for the South Koreans.

The statement echoed a pledge by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who met Friday with visiting South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young and said Pyongyang could return to international nuclear disarmament talks as soon as next month if it gets appropriate respect from Washington.

Chung, head of Seoul's delegation, on Wednesday urged the North to return to nuclear talks in July, his ministry said.

"The North Korean nuclear issue is a matter between the two Koreas as well as an international one," Kim Chun-shick quoted Chung as saying.

The North has stayed away from six-party talks aimed at persuading it to disarm since June 2004, citing "hostile" U.S. policies. It declared in February that it had nuclear weapons and has insisted that the nuclear standoff can only be discussed with the United States. The North's claim has not been verified independently.

Two U.S. experts on Korea wrote in The Washington Post on Wednesday that they delivered a message from the North Korean leader to President Bush in November 2002.

The written message to Bush said the United States and North Korea "should be able to resolve the nuclear issue in compliance with the demands of the new century," according to the two messengers — Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, and Don Oberdorfer, a Korea expert at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.

"If the United States makes a bold decision, we will respond accordingly," Kim said in the message, according to Gregg and Oberdorfer.

Kim's offer was conditioned on U.S. recognition of North Korea's sovereignty and assurances of nonaggression, the two wrote in an opinion piece.

But the administration spurned engagement with Kim. In response, the authors said, Kim within weeks expelled inspectors from the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, withdrew from the Nonproliferation Treaty and reopened plutonium facilities shut down since 1994 under an agreement with the Clinton administration.

...Gregg and Oberdorfer said they see a new opportunity for a breakthrough in Kim's conciliatory comments last week in which he raised the possibility of reversing his nuclear program and rejoining the treaty. They urged Bush to follow up on Kim's overture by communicating directly with him.

According to this story from the Associated Press, it sounds like Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, and Don Oberdorfer, a Korea expert at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, are placing blame for North Korea's nukes on the Bush administration.

They say that Kim Jong Il tried to be nice, but Bush was mean. The President didn't give North Korea appropriate respect, so North Korea had to develop nuclear weapons.

These "experts" are clearly apologists for the Clinton administration. They are trying to clean up the stains Bill left so Hillary won't have to answer for the North Korean mess when she officially hits the campaign trail.

If the U.S. treats North Korea in a "friendly manner," the country will disarm?

Only foreign policy disaster Democrats like Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright would believe that.

North Korea is a threat today because they did.

Sloppy Berger

""

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former national security adviser Sandy Berger will plead guilty to taking classified documents from the National Archives, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Berger, who served in the Clinton administration, will enter the plea Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, said Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra.

The plea agreement, if accepted by a judge, ends a bizarre episode in which the man who once had access to the government's most sensitive intelligence was accused of sneaking documents out of the Archives in his clothing...

He said he was reviewing the materials to help determine which Clinton administration documents to provide to the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He called the episode "an honest mistake," and denied criminal wrongdoing.

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

He returned most of the documents, but still missing are some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration.

"Mr. Berger has cooperated fully with the Department of Justice and is pleased that a resolution appears very near," Breuer said Thursday.

The charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison and up to a $100,000 fine.

However, a federal law enforcement official said a plea agreement calls for Berger to serve no jail time but to pay a $10,000 fine, surrender his security clearance for three years and cooperate with investigators. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the pending court proceeding. A judge must approve the agreement...

Former President Clinton was among Democrats who questioned the timing of the disclosure of the Berger probe, three days before the release of the final Sept. 11 commission report. The commission, writing just three months before the 2004 presidential election, detailed failures of both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
______________________________

Poor sloppy Sandy. Removing classified documents, stuffing notes in his pants, failing to return all of the drafts he "borrowed"--it could happen to anyone.

For three years Sandy won't have security clearance, surrendering his access to classified government materials. It'll will be tough for him to manage without that privilege.

I suppose he could find someone else with security clearance to smuggle out classified documents for him, as an "honest mistake" of course.