What I Think I Think about the Sandy Berger Story at this Stage

In no particular order:

1. There are two parts of the story, both incontrovertible, that utter baffle me. a) It is clear that he did take documents out that he knew he shouldn't have--the hand-written notes alone makes one wonder what in the world he was thinking, and b) it is clear that he did this more than once. How in the world could a former National Security Adviser be so, well, stupid?

2. I remain dubious about the socks/pants-stuffing, but hold out the possibility that it is an accurate account. I also hold out the possibility that someone is making it up for any number of reasons. It is noteworthy that the stories I have read on the stuffing business cite sources (plural) not just "a source" as witnesses to said stuffing activities.

3. He should've told the Kerry campaign that he was under investigation.

4. At this point I feel kind of sorry for him, because if this ends up being a wholly innocent story, he has substantially damaged his career for absolutely no good reason.

5. The political fall-out of this story is likely to be slight--it strikes me as no more than a small example of the general Republican charge that Democrats shouldn't be trusted with with national security. However, directly linking this to Kerry isn't going to work too well, one would think. Still, having the Berger and Wilson stories out do blunt, to some degree, the whole Kerry line of argument that states that the country should "trust" the Democrats with the nation's foreign policy.

6. The timing issue is bogus: no matter when this was revealed, the Democrats would have claimed that the timing was suspicious. Indeed, one could argue that it would have been better to waiting until October, when the buzz would likely have been the Berger might by the SecState in the new Kerry admin, and then break the story (or, as reader Steven noted in the comments of a post, why not wait until he was an "official" advisers to Kerry, rather than an "unofficial" one). Indeed, even Kevin Drum notes that the leak's timing is more advantageous to the Democrats than the Republicans, if one assume that the story was going to come out at some point prior to the November elections.

7. The partisan flavor of the coverage from the NYT has been utterly remarkable. The initial story was buried, and one knows full well that if this was a former Bush administration official accused of these kinds of activities that it would be a front page story on a daily basis. As it stands one has to hunt their website for the latest updates. Indeed, the suggestion in today's story (White House Knew of Inquiry on Aide; Kerry Camp Irked) is more aimed at who might've leaked the story than the story itself. After all, if the White House knew, it must mean that someone in the Bush administration leaked the story! And certainly leaking the story is far more important than what Berger did.

Posted by Steven Taylor at July 22, 2024 10:46 AM | TrackBack