Recently in Bob T. Is Madder Than Hell Category

In my last column, I discussed the Valerie Plame affair -- a non-crime that the Democrats, assisted by the mainstream media (MSM), hysterically elevated to the status of a major scandal. In this column, I'm going to address a scandal that involved real criminal acts that the MSM chose to almost totally ignore. I'm referring to Sandy Berger and his theft of classified documents from the National Archives.

Now I'm willing to bet that a large majority of the people reading this column know little or nothing about the Berger scandal. I have brought the subject up on a number of occasions with friends and barroom colleagues, and they have always drawn a blank in these discussions. No one I've spoken with has ever known anything about the scandal. And why should they? They have made the mistake of relying on the MSM for information. They therefore know what the MSM wants them to know, and they have little or no knowledge on those subjects of which the MSM would prefer that they remain blissfully ignorant. And the outrageous conduct of Sandy Berger in the National Archives is a subject on which the MSM seems to have decided that people should remain uninformed.

Samuel R. (Sandy) Berger, aka Sandy "Socks and Shorts" Berger, is a long-time soldier in the Clinton crime family, who served as Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor during the period 1997 to 2001. Called to testify before the 9/11 Commission and acting on a letter of delegation from Clinton, Berger made four trips to the National Archives in 2003 to review various highly classified documents in preparation for his testimony. Security requirements on such documents mandate that they not be copied and that they are not to be removed from the archives. Security is so tight that any handwritten notes made by a person reviewing these documents have to pass a separate security review prior to removal from the archives. The reviewer is under constant observation by the archival staff.

In his State of the Union Address in January of 2003, George W. Bush had asserted that the Hussein regime attempted to procure uranium yellow cake from Niger -- an assertion that would become known as "the sixteen words." In July of 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, former ambassador Joseph Wilson published an op-ed piece in the New York Times entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa." This essay was highly critical of the Bush administration and asserted that during his fact-finding mission to Niger prior to the start of the war, Wilson had found no evidence that the Hussein regime had sought to procure uranium yellow cake. Shortly after publication of this article, Robert Novak published a piece in which he identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an employee of the CIA. Wilson then charged that the Bush administration had "outed" his wife, revealing her employment as a covert CIA agent, in a deliberate attempt to punish him for his criticism.

Well, here we had a “scandal" custom made for the mainstream media and their continuing obsession with the evil machinations of the Bush administration. Congressional hearings were held, the New York Times piously editorialized. Wilson announced at one point that he looked forward to seeing "Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." Ultimately, a U.S. Attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, was chosen as a Special Counsel to investigate this assumed violation of federal law -- the statute in question being The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.

Unfortunately, some problems soon cropped up that began to subvert this pleasing anti-Bush-administration narrative with all its anticipated delights such as felony indictments, convictions, impeachment proceedings, etc. For one thing, Valerie Plame's then current status with the CIA failed to meet the criteria for what constitutes "covert status." While Plame had been employed years previously in covert status, her position at that time was as a CIA analyst. Anyone interested in Valerie Plame's employment could have followed her to work and watched her drive into CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. (This is what's known in intelligence lingo as "deep cover.") Plame's covert status had actually been exposed years previously by the notorious traitor and spy, Aldrich Ames. Her ability to serve as a covert agent hopelessly and permanently compromised, Valerie's cloak and dagger days were long past by the time her husband published his article in the Times. There was no chance she could ever again be given a covert assignment.