Right Wing Nut House

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of his own destruction, former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, a convicted thief of classified documents, has been hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign as a foreign policy advisor.

Giving an ex-con a helping hand is fully in keeping with Mrs. Clinton’s compassionate nature so I’m loathe to criticize her for hypocrisy. But as a result of the scope of Berger’s crimes - stealing and destroying classified documents that reflected badly on her husband’s presidency - he may be just the man Hillary needs to white wash the historical record so that her foreign policy, instead of being a mish mash of liberal bromides and bewildering zig zags on Iraq and the War on Terror, may actually acquire a coherence so far lacking.

Perhaps he can get started on any documents connecting Norman Hsu to the campaign and work his way up from there.

It will certainly be a novel experience having our next president’s foreign policy shaped by a convicted felon. Aside from the obvious advantage that Berger will bring to the Clinton Administration when having to deal with other criminals like Syria’s Bashar Assad and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, just think of the benefits of having an advisor that actually thinks like a crook. This opens up possibilities far beyond the foreign policy sphere - one reason Berger may have been hired in the first place.

Seriously, this is truly incredible. Richard Miniter outlines Berger’s crimes:

My informed sources suggest that what Berger destroyed were copies of the Millennium After-Action Review, a binder-sized report prepared by Richard Clarke in 2000—a year and half before the 9-11 attacks. The review made a series of recommendations for a tougher stance against bin Laden and terrorism. There are 13 or more copies of this report. But only one contains hand-written notes by President Bill Clinton. Apparently, in the margin beside the recommendations, Bill Clinton wrote NO, NO, NO next to many of the tougher policy proposals.

You can see why Clinton might be happy to see these records vanish down the memory hole.

So Berger was stuffing in pants and socks and later shredding the evidence that President Clinton did not want to take a tougher line on bin Laden, following the 1998 attack on two U.S. embassies that killed 224 people (including 12 American diplomats).

Recall that Berger was ostensibly preparing for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission while at the same time, trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Commission investigators:

The commission’s former general counsel, Dan Marcus, now an American University law professor, separately expressed surprise at how little the Justice Department told the commission about Berger and said it was “a little unnerving” to learn from the congressional report exactly what Berger reviewed at the Archives and what he admitted to the FBI —including that he removed and cut up three copies of a classified memo.

“If he took papers out, these were unique records, and highly, highly classified. Had a document not been produced, who would have known?” Brachfeld said in an interview. “I thought [the 9/11 Commission] should know, in current time—in judging Sandy Berger as a witness . . . that there was a risk they did not get the full production of records.”

What do you think the reaction of the Commission would have been to Berger if it had been known that he absconded with or destroyed hundreds of terrorism-related documents from the Clinton Administration?

All of this is water under the bridge, of course. Perhaps Berger was good enough to write a note to future historians to be published after his death exactly what it was he destroyed and why. Someone as intelligent as Berger, a man who spent so many years at the center of history, would, it is hoped, eventually have enough self respect to not keep future historians in the dark.

Berger has now been rehabilitated to the point that Mrs. Clinton is rewarding his service to Bill’s legacy by making him one of her top foreign policy advisors. There is very little chance he would have any job in a new Clinton Administration for which he would have to be confirmed by the Senate. His nomination would never get out of committee. But there are a couple of positions to which he might be considered a front runner - positions where the prying eyes of the Senate would be blocked because he wouldn’t need any confirmation hearings.

How about National Security Advisor?