In a report on the efforts of Democratic presidential candidates to attract the "best and brightest" policy advisors for their campaigns, Newsweek columnist Michael Hirsh reports that former national security advisor and document pilferer Sandy Berger is one of the three foreign policy experts most relied upon by Senator Hillary Clinton in her White House bid. No word on whether he would have a White House position — or security clearance — in a potential Clinton Administration.
UPDATE: For prior Sandy Burglar posts, see here.
FURTHER UPDATE: Why do I find the report that Hillary Clinton is using Sandy Berger as one of her key foreign policy advisors so unnerving? Because it shows both poor judgment and a lack of regard for Berger's legal and ethical breaches. I also find it quite surprising. Hillary Clinton has impressed me as a Senator and as a candidate. Whatever her other faults, she is intelligent, savvy, disciplined, and determined; by far the most impressive candidate in the Democratic field. All this makes her apparent inclusion of Berger in her foreign policy "triumverate" all the more difficult to fathom.
For those who forget, Berger repeatedly stole and destroyed classified documents, resulting in the temporary loss of his security clearance. Berger has never provided a plausible explanation for his actions. By voluntarily giving up his law license, he avoided a cross-examination from bar counsel, so we still do not know precisely what he was doing and why. Indeed, the only assurance that Berger did not destroy unique copies of classified national security documents — such as copies of reports containing notations in the margins and the like — comes from Berger himself, something that the 9/11 Commission was not told when it was preparing its report (as I noted here).
In sum, I do not believe one needs to be an anti-Clinton partisan to find this report disturbing. Judging by the comments, it seems many many Democratic-leaning readers agree.
SECOND UPDATE: Lots more at BeldarBlog here.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Is Sandy Berger Back?
- A Sandy Burglar Comeback?
Honestly, I don't particularly like Sandy Berger. It is likely that at least some of what was alleged is true. Having said that, EVERY administration has shady, behind the scenes people who would love to actually be in charge, but can't because the skeletons in their closet A) prevent the public from accepting them and B) actually make them more useful performing dirty deeds. This obsession with these characters from the Clinton years is sad. The nickname makes a respected member of the academy look like Michael Savage.
I'm going to have a tough time taking you seriously from now on.
How strong are your partisan blinders? Regardless of the lenient terms of his plea, he publicly admitted to stealing and destroying the documents.
Let's review what Sandy Berger did:
From Wikipedia:
On July 19, 2004, it was revealed that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating Berger for unlawfully stealing classified documents in October 2003, by removing them from a National Archives reading room prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The documents were five classified copies of a single report commissioned from Richard Clarke, covering internal assessments of the Clinton administration's handling of the unsuccessful 2000 millennium attack plots.
When initially questioned by reporters, Berger claimed that the removal of the top-secret documents in his attache-case and handwritten notes in his jacket and pants pockets was accidental. He later, in a guilty plea, admitted to deliberately removing the copies and cutting three up with scissors. Archive staff stated they witnessed Berger, on more than one occasion, stuffing into his pants and into his jacket papers he was illegally removing. One witness saw Berger stuffing into his socks papers from the archives. [13] Two of the copies were recovered by DOJ investigators and returned to the archives.
...
a report issued by the archives inspector detailed how Berger had perpetrated the crime. Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that Berger took a break to go outside without an escort. "In total, during this visit, he removed four documents ... Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building)." Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.[24][25]
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And you might get something like this from Prof. B., too, if only Berger had stolen DC-area real estate.
This seems to me to be one area where left and right can agree.
Don't do the crime if you can't stand the rhyme.
That is all.
And to think this follows a post about a group of people who put principle before party - the contrast is blinding.
I might add that Brad Delong after serving her in the Health Care task force said that she her lack of executive management skills permanantly disqualified herself from any executive postion. I think she is pretty good Senator, even though I disagree with her on most policy positions.
A good friend of mine worked at the white house during the Clinton administration. She had a fairly menial job, and answered certain phone lines as part of her responsibilities (basically as an operator). Sandy Berger was apparently INFAMOUS for completely losing his temper and screaming, etc at people--especially the "help." One time he was apparently left out of a meeting (or otherwise out of the loop on something--I forget the exact detail), called the white house, my friend answered, and he immediately starting screaming over the phone at her, swearing, etc. (over an issue she had absolutely noting to do with) My friend said she'd never heard anyone talk like that to another person her entire life...
Regardless of anything else about Berger, people who lose their temper like that, and ESPECIALLY those who take out their anger on subordinates, are deserving of very little respect, imho..
That review of the books by Podhoretz and Ledeen was interesting, given that it's by Peter Beinart of the Council on Foreign Relations.
If you are a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations, part of your job is to make carefully nuanced distinctions between Moktada al-Sadr, Sunni militants, al Qaeda, and so on. But for all practical purposes, the differences don't mean that much. So Beinart complains that Podhoretz' Islamofascism goes largely undefined. "Podhoretz does call it a “monster with two heads, one religious and the other secular.” But if fascism involves worship of the state, how exactly does the eligious “head” — Al Qaeda — qualify, given that Osama bin Laden sees the state as a pagan imposition threatening the unity of Islam?" But the point is that for all the extremists, the state is controlled by Islam, as Beinart surely knows. So there are really only two political domains, dar-al-Islam and dar-al-Harb.
The current situation in the West Bank and Gaza is an excellent illustration of what happens when we try to get too clever about these distinctions. Years back, we got the PLO to renounce the destruction of Israel. Now the international experts are trying to do the same with regard to Hamas.
It's good to see that at least some conservatives are concerned again about employing criminals in the white house!
The guy has been in the office before.
He also is so loyal that he will not only commit a crime for the family but he will clam up and take a conviction for them.
1) "Sandy Burglar" is really unavoidable given his actions. Just lighten up;
2) The question of the relative merits of Podhoretz/Ledeen versus Berger/Albright is a distraction from the issue of Berger's fitness for office, to the extent that there are other advisors for Democrats to choose. Now, I'm taking the liberty here of speaking for you Democratic VCers. But I bet you think that the Dem Party's foreign policy stable has more than one horse in it, right? So would-be Pres. Clinton is not obliged by necessity to rely on the advice of a shady character like Berger, is she?
The fine print: I am not a fan of Podhoretz. And Ledeed seems monomaniacal on Iran, advocating policies that would turn pro-American Iranian youths *against* the US. BUT . . . I'm unaware of any illegal actions of official malfeasance on their part.
Besides, if we are to rehablitate Democratic FoPo wonks who have done naughty things, please let's no make it Berger: He confused American security with American trade. And that was kinda bad for us. Why can't the Democrats rehabilitate Stephen Solarz, who actually was a capable FoPo thinker?
Please don't. Really.
Do you folks on the left really intend on voting for these people a third time? Apart from being corrupt as hell, the Clintons have sold you out in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Apart from her probable surrender in Iraq which will prolong the war with al Qaeda, this libertarian Elephant is not worried about a third Clinton presidency because she will follow the polls in what is essentially a center right country - just like her hubby. Nothing much will happen, which is fine by this libertarian.
So that's it? You respond to my post, and that's your reponse?
Just imagine how many rings the "circus" would have had the past 6 years if Fox News covered Bush the way it covered Clinton.
Clinton's circus would now seem like "Mouseville".
JHA
This whole Berger thing is not just an example of what's wrong with the Clintons (actually just a reminder more than an example). Its also a vivid demostration of what is wrong with the entire DOJ, especially the career prosecutor bureaucracy, that Orin loves and respects so much. They gave Berger an unbelievable sweetheart deal on his crimes, and then didn't even bother to enforce parts of that sweatheart deal (such as Berger being required as part of the deal to take a lie detector test about the documents he stole and destroyed. Something the incompetent DOJ permanent career class have failed to this day to do).
Says the "Dog"
I don't know. which frustrates me. I'm not clear on whom Giuliani would choose as Sec State or National Security Advisor. It's easy to imagine him choosing, say, Richard Haass for NSA (which would be excellent). Or any of the pragmatic GOP foreign policy hands. He's not an ideological hawk.
So, if your question was rhetorical, then I suppose you don't realy care what I "truly think." If not, then I'll say that I think it's a distinct possibility, but still impossible to say for sure.
HAHAHAHA!!! Great stuff. But what does it mean coming from someone not inclined to vote for a Democrat? I guess she's the one most in that category want to win b/c out of the media's pre-selected Big 3, she's the easiest to beat.
But does policy matter any more in the Rove era? Isn't it all about political power?
Just from a policy standpoint, I don't like anyone in the GOP field (but I'd like to see Ron Paul drag the party back to where it used to be), and I don't particularly like Senator Clinton either. But if she is the nominee I think she will win. I didn't think so a year ago, but despite her negatives the GOP candidate is going to have even more negatives come fall 2008 as the Iraq war bill comes due.
At least we would get better federal judges out of her. Much, much better.
I mean, I used to watch TV during the 1990s, but I read the paper from time to time, too. And that's not how I remeber it.
Could you perhaps supply a single example of a Clinton scandal which was broken by Fox News because of what you imply is harsh, relentless coverage by them of President Clinton and his FOBs?
But back on point, of course Sen. Clinton is relying on Sandy Berger. It's part of the Clintons' modus operandi. They have governed always by the poll and by personal relationships, little else. Procedural protections were certainly never their strong point. Remember how important it was to be an FOB (Friend of Bill) in those days? When Pres. Clinton took office, key White House staffers sometimes went a year or two without obtaining the supposedly required security clearances. "I trust him" was the apparent mantra; if you were "with them" then you could do no wrong and it would be insulting to question such a staffer by requiring them to go through some bureaucratic process. And when they did start working on security clearances, they wound up starting with the FBI files of FORMER White House staffers, from the first Bush presidency. Hmmm....
As for the laughable suggestion that libertarians ought to like the Clintons? Remember the Clipper Chip fiasco? The Clinton Administration wanted to require by law that every encryption device in the country use a government-approved chip with a government-mandated back-door to listen to whatever conversations you might be having. How about that waste of time and money, the V-Chip, now required by law (passed at his urging and signed into law by Pres. Clinton) in every single TV set sold in this country. And don't get me started on the socialistic HillaryCare...
I've got an historical chart of the budget deficit (as a percentage of GDP) showing which party was in charge of the White House and the House of Representatives at StubbornFacts.us. You can see that the trend towards shrinking the deficit began under Bush 41 and continued with Clinton, with most of it taking place while there was a Republican House of Representatives.
Right except for the part about the Brady Bill, suing gun companies because criminals misuse their products, suing tobacco companies because insurance companies and States who already charge (tax) smokers at higher rates (excise taxes) wanted even more money, supporting racial preferences and setasides, opposition to any school choice that challenges the government school monopoly, and promising to “take away things from you for the common good” what’s not to like?
Quite a bit actually:
Health Care Reform – each of the major Republican candidates* is focusing on free market reforms like expanding HSA’s and/or giving the self-insured the same tax benefits as employers who provide their employees with health insurance, expanding competition by allowing consumers to purchase policies across State lines regardless of their State’s unfunded mandates, and letting small groups and individuals band together in Association Health Plans to buy insurance at better rates. In contrast each of the Democrat candidates is pushing for expanding the number of people who get their health care paid for by the government including people who already can afford it on their own.
Entitlement Reform – each of the major GOP candidates supports allowing younger workers to invest at least a portion of their FICA and is open to slowing the rate of growth of entitlement spending. None of the Democrats support choice for younger workers and most of them have come out in favor of just raising taxes (again).
Taxes – each of the major Republican candidates has come out in favor of extending the existing tax cuts and/or lowering taxes even further. Senator Clinton voted “no” on pretty much all of them (and tried to repeal the capital gains tax cuts), supports their expiration and wants to raise taxes even higher.
Spending – pretty much all of the major Republican candidates have criticized Congress and the President for spending too much whereas Senator Clinton has called for even higher levels of spending (and in the few times she voted “no” such as Medicare Part D, it was because it didn’t spend enough).
At this point, the only Republican candidate likely to hire worse advisors would be Ron Paul.
* Who I define as Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain.
My opinion of Clinton as a candidate or even a Presidnt is not really relevant to that.
"If some midlevel defense worker had been caught stealing classified documents like that, or even just putting a copy in his briefcase to work on at home instead of in an approved facility..."
HE WOULD BE RROTTING IN PRISON for some double-digit number of years. The whole Berger thing has stunk to high heavin since the start! And that stink involved BOTH parties (the Clintons, obviously, but also Republicans... who in the world approved that ludicrous plea bargain? And what was the leverage used to get that approval?!?)
I think we forget the power of example. Remember the Travel Office. Not only were they fired. To make it stink, to be assholes, and to cover up their transparent desire to get a gig for a couple of friends, the Clintons called in the FBI and put the guys through the expense of trials.
Also the 93 US attorneys fired in a bunch.
What, some of the folks must be thinking, if Hillary wins?
Didn't Ledeen have a role in the Iran-Contra scandal and also a role in the Chalabi stuff before the Iraq War?
I wouldn't let him off the "official malfeasance" hook so quickly.
Any details?
If he did any of what he was accused of (and of course he did), and wasn't as politically well connected as he obviously is, he'd be doing hard time right now. That he isn't should be considered a national disgrace, whatever your party affiliation.
Hilarious.
Let me ask you a question, at what point to you become so partisan that you can't acknowledge facts?
Seriously, when?
I'm going to have a tough time taking you seriously from now on.
Parody.
It comes down to the courts. Not all libertarians want a country in which power is taken out of the hands of the elected branches and transfered to unelected judges. These libertarians, I among them, will have a hard time voting for Hillary.
Do you really not appreciate the difference?
What I remember was that Ledeen pushed Shimon Peres and the Israelis to participate in the secret sale of arms to Iran in exchange for hostage releases and also obtained the assistance of Manuchar Ghobanifar, the shady arms dealer who served as the intermediary for the sales. He might have been involved in other ways as well.
*Blink* Isn't Nixon a slightly better candidate for this dubious title? Unless by the adverb "personally" you mean to remove Watergate burglary and the coverup. Grant and Harding come to mind as Presidents whose corruption actually involved letting their cronies loot the public trough. Not sure there's any evidence of that with the Clintons, any personal ethical failings or perjurious testimony re same aside.
I wasn't aware that Presidents had the power to levy (and cut) taxes and appropriate spending. Instead of praising Treasury secretaries, perhaps you should be praising the Republican-controlled Congress from six of Clinton's eight years in office? If only they had continued their restraint after Dubya's election.
And as someone else mentioned, the only actual reduction in spending was from the "peace dividend" gutting of our armed forces. So although this war is Dubya's legacy, the way it has overextended our military capabilities is the legacy of Bush 41, Clinton, and their associated Congresses.
Since Nixon had no knowledge of either of the Watergate break-ins, I think it probably should be excluded from consideration of "personal" corruption. As for the coverup, not only have Presidents done far more corrupt things both before and since, Nixon himself did far worse when he took the US off of the gold standard and instituted price controls not because he thought it was sound policy for the nation but in an effort to use his official powers to jigger with his popularity going into an election. Nobody seems to mind about that abuse of power though even though it caused nearly a decade of high inflation coupled with a stagnant economy. I think it may be responsible for disco as well.
This continuing national obsession with Watergate as if it were significant is ludicrous. It was laughably minor compared to the stuff that both parties did semi-openly back then. Heck, JFK bragged to Ben Bradlee about illegally viewing the tax returns of prominent Republican donors and ordering audits of many of them. Unlike Watergate, Bradlee didn't bother to publish those crimes until over a decade after Kennedy's death. Even then, there wasn't a hint of reproach in his account. But don't take my word for it, read Conversations with JFK ISBN: 0393301893. But, yeah, let's keep pretending that Nixon was the antichrist and everyone else was as pure as the driven snow.
True enough from a bird's eye view, and I definitely agree about Dubya's Congress. But the way it works in modern practice is for the President to submit a budget, which he and the Congress then fight over (or not). And of course the President has significant persuasive/bullying power, ability to command media attention, etc. The more personally credible the President is, the more he has this power, which of course hurt Clinton near the end. To overly credit Clinton's Republican Congress does miss the larger point that he did truly confront his party on some stock issues and did make tough choices, even before the 1994 takeover. He believed and also was further persuaded by his Treasury guys to focus on deficit reduction and thereby lowering interest rates rather than on expensive expansions of government that couldn't be paid for. He had the political and fiscal courage to raise taxes (though not much) to cover the shortfall, while still restraining new spending, which is precisely the opposite tactic of Bush 43 and his Congress, who apparently believe in the empirically false doctrine of starve the beast (or just in looting the public coffers for the benefit of their friends).
Jonathan, I think you're making one unjustified inference here: I think there's a very good argument that this could be explained by Sen Clinton's extremely high regard for Berger's legal and ethical
breechesbreaches.Corrupt president? Nixon was a piker. JFK was slease. I've always had a fondness for LBJ who entered government $3k in debt and retired from service with $60mil. Too, when E Howard Hunt spied on the Goldwater campaign for Lyndon he was still active duty CIA.
"At least we would get better federal judges out of her. Much, much better."
For real? We are doomed, as is our Constitution.
Please consider this:
1. Sandy Berger, admittedly, stole classified documents knowing that it was illegal to do so. He pled guilty to the "Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents."
2. Hillary Clinton is both smart, shrewd and calculating. (like her or not, it is true - she is no dummy)
3. Mrs. Clinton has selected Sandy Berger as one of her four closest advisors on foreign policy.
4. Mrs. Clinton must have known this was a controversial choice and could cause her substantial political trouble,
but gaining her nothing in the political arena, unless, of course Mr. Berger was either the most qualified person to do the job and no one else could do the job as well as he could. (A ridiculous conclusion.) Or - he had access to politcal money no one else had (Also, a ridiculous conclusion)
So - why would a very smart political person like Mrs. Clinton use Sandy Berger, a politcal liabilty, a not indispensible person, as part of her team of closest advisors?
Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Berger could become more of a liability to Mrs. Clinton (and her husband) if she didn't use him.
I leave you to draw your own conclusion.