Jamie Weinstein
Sandy Burglar
By Jamie Weinstein
© 2005 Cornell Daily Sun
If it wasn't for the ultra/radical/όber conservative media which dominates our television and from which we cannot escape, you probably would have heard about a great scandal. And if this neofacist, rightist media didn't waste its time covering such an un-newsworthy story as the death of one of the longest serving Popes in history a Pope who did nothing more important than aid Ronald Reagan in bringing down one of the worst despotic empires the world has ever seen then this story probably would be front-page news. That is, only if the media wasn't so darn conservative.
So the Bush administration was probably able to head off the news of this scandal by calling all its friends at super duper conservative media outlets like CBS, CNN and The New York Times. After all, it isn't good when your National Security Advisor, a Cornellian no less, gets into a bit of trouble. That is why Stephen Hadley '6 ... oh, wait. No, No. I think I made a mistake. This Cornell grad was National Security Advisor served under President Clinton, not Bush. So why wouldn't this monumentally conservative media cover it? Hmm.
Anyway, in case you haven't heard, which you probably haven't, former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger '67, from here on known as Sandy Burglar or any other variation that I should wittily use, admitted to stealing classified documents. Now while this obviously is not nearly as serious a story as the Jeff/James Gannon/Guckert "scandal" sense the sarcasm I think it still carries some significance.
Months ago, when these charges first came up, many on the political left immediately defended Cornell's kleptocrat, claiming the charges were overblown. Now, I must admit that many things liberals said months ago have turned out to be baloney. Not the least of which was what Swiping Sandy himself said at Cornell in October as reported by The Sun: "The situation in Iraq is bad and not getting better." WHOOPS!!!
Anyway, it isn't a crime to be chronically wrong. If it were, there would be a lot of liberals in jail. But it is a crime to burgle. And to burgle classified documents is serious business. And to shred some of these burgled documents is even worse. What's the deal, Sandy Burglar?
Maybe I have gotten ahead of myself. So let's start from the beginning. Back in July, it was revealed that Sandy Berger was under investigation for taking highly classified documents out of the National Archives.
There to review documents before testifying in front of the 9/11 commission, employees at the National Archives began to suspect that Berger was pilfering some of the documents. They had seen him hiding the documents, among other places, in his pants.
As a former National Security Advisor, he certainly knew the rules about dealing with highly classified documents. Yet, when confronted with the charges last July, he released a statement saying the following:
"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives ... When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had except for a few documents that I apparently had accidentally discarded."
It is hard to imagine how this former National Security Advisor could "inadvertently" take classified documents from the National Archive on several occasions and even harder to fathom how anyone could "inadvertently" stick classified documents down their pants. As Byran York noted in the National Review at the time this story first broke, "Any person who is authorized to remove such documents from a special secure room is required to do so in a locked case that is handcuffed to his or her wrist." You just don't forget rules like that.
Nonetheless, at the time these charges first publicly surfaced, critics railed against the charges as a political smear against Berger. After all, he said he "immediately returned everything" he had "except for a few documents" that he had "apparently discarded."
In Berger's world, "discarding" is evidently synonymous with "shredding." In pleading guilty to the misdemeanor charges less than a week ago, Berger admitted that he not only took documents from the National Archives intentionally, but actually shredded some of the documents documents pertaining to the Clinton Administration's handling of terrorism with scissors. Nothing inadvertent about that.
Berger's penalty was rather light. He was ordered to pay $10,000 and have his National Security clearance revoked for three years. At the very least, it seems like his actions should preclude him from ever regaining his National Security clearance, if not require some jail time. He got a slap on the wrist to say the least.
With the legal part settled, the biggest questions still remain: Why did Sandy Burglar steal the documents? More importantly, why did he destroy some of them? These are questions no one has been able to answer as of yet. However, it would be hard to believe that the answers to the questions are innocent. So what was Sandy Shredder hiding?
Some crimes are worse than others and even the same types of crime can be put on a spectrum from bad to worse. This is certainly true of burgling. On one end of the spectrum lies The Hamburlgar, who only stole McDonald's hamburgers, and even then, only during TV commercials. On the other side of the specturm lies Syria, which stole Lebanon. Certainly, Sandy Berger's burgle is not as serious as Syria's, but it is also not as innocent as those burgles of the Hamburglar.
But which of these two extremes is it closer to? Well that depends on the answers to the aforementioned unanswered questions. One way or another, though, the public will find out. We deserve to know what the bumbling burglar Sandy Berger was trying to cover up.
© Jamie Weinstein
© 2005 Cornell Daily Sun
If it wasn't for the ultra/radical/όber conservative media which dominates our television and from which we cannot escape, you probably would have heard about a great scandal. And if this neofacist, rightist media didn't waste its time covering such an un-newsworthy story as the death of one of the longest serving Popes in history a Pope who did nothing more important than aid Ronald Reagan in bringing down one of the worst despotic empires the world has ever seen then this story probably would be front-page news. That is, only if the media wasn't so darn conservative.
So the Bush administration was probably able to head off the news of this scandal by calling all its friends at super duper conservative media outlets like CBS, CNN and The New York Times. After all, it isn't good when your National Security Advisor, a Cornellian no less, gets into a bit of trouble. That is why Stephen Hadley '6 ... oh, wait. No, No. I think I made a mistake. This Cornell grad was National Security Advisor served under President Clinton, not Bush. So why wouldn't this monumentally conservative media cover it? Hmm.
Anyway, in case you haven't heard, which you probably haven't, former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger '67, from here on known as Sandy Burglar or any other variation that I should wittily use, admitted to stealing classified documents. Now while this obviously is not nearly as serious a story as the Jeff/James Gannon/Guckert "scandal" sense the sarcasm I think it still carries some significance.
Months ago, when these charges first came up, many on the political left immediately defended Cornell's kleptocrat, claiming the charges were overblown. Now, I must admit that many things liberals said months ago have turned out to be baloney. Not the least of which was what Swiping Sandy himself said at Cornell in October as reported by The Sun: "The situation in Iraq is bad and not getting better." WHOOPS!!!
Anyway, it isn't a crime to be chronically wrong. If it were, there would be a lot of liberals in jail. But it is a crime to burgle. And to burgle classified documents is serious business. And to shred some of these burgled documents is even worse. What's the deal, Sandy Burglar?
Maybe I have gotten ahead of myself. So let's start from the beginning. Back in July, it was revealed that Sandy Berger was under investigation for taking highly classified documents out of the National Archives.
There to review documents before testifying in front of the 9/11 commission, employees at the National Archives began to suspect that Berger was pilfering some of the documents. They had seen him hiding the documents, among other places, in his pants.
As a former National Security Advisor, he certainly knew the rules about dealing with highly classified documents. Yet, when confronted with the charges last July, he released a statement saying the following:
"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives ... When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had except for a few documents that I apparently had accidentally discarded."
It is hard to imagine how this former National Security Advisor could "inadvertently" take classified documents from the National Archive on several occasions and even harder to fathom how anyone could "inadvertently" stick classified documents down their pants. As Byran York noted in the National Review at the time this story first broke, "Any person who is authorized to remove such documents from a special secure room is required to do so in a locked case that is handcuffed to his or her wrist." You just don't forget rules like that.
Nonetheless, at the time these charges first publicly surfaced, critics railed against the charges as a political smear against Berger. After all, he said he "immediately returned everything" he had "except for a few documents" that he had "apparently discarded."
In Berger's world, "discarding" is evidently synonymous with "shredding." In pleading guilty to the misdemeanor charges less than a week ago, Berger admitted that he not only took documents from the National Archives intentionally, but actually shredded some of the documents documents pertaining to the Clinton Administration's handling of terrorism with scissors. Nothing inadvertent about that.
Berger's penalty was rather light. He was ordered to pay $10,000 and have his National Security clearance revoked for three years. At the very least, it seems like his actions should preclude him from ever regaining his National Security clearance, if not require some jail time. He got a slap on the wrist to say the least.
With the legal part settled, the biggest questions still remain: Why did Sandy Burglar steal the documents? More importantly, why did he destroy some of them? These are questions no one has been able to answer as of yet. However, it would be hard to believe that the answers to the questions are innocent. So what was Sandy Shredder hiding?
Some crimes are worse than others and even the same types of crime can be put on a spectrum from bad to worse. This is certainly true of burgling. On one end of the spectrum lies The Hamburlgar, who only stole McDonald's hamburgers, and even then, only during TV commercials. On the other side of the specturm lies Syria, which stole Lebanon. Certainly, Sandy Berger's burgle is not as serious as Syria's, but it is also not as innocent as those burgles of the Hamburglar.
But which of these two extremes is it closer to? Well that depends on the answers to the aforementioned unanswered questions. One way or another, though, the public will find out. We deserve to know what the bumbling burglar Sandy Berger was trying to cover up.
© Jamie Weinstein
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