Lots of luck with that FOIA request. Mr. McAuliffe should have consulted Janet Reno as to the likelihood of getting a meaningful FOIA response related to a pending investigation by the Government. Of course, he doesn't want a reply, he wants a denial of his request so that he can waive the bloody shirt of innuendo and cover up during his party's convention.

It's all about the tiiiiimmmmmmiiiinnnnnnngggggg!

Oh, and just so you know, he didn't inhale.

In light of the seriousness of the possibility that the Bush administration and the Department of Justice have politicized an ongoing investigation,..

hahaa....Hahaaahahaha.....HAAAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAAA!!!!

"Conservative scholar" Norm Ornstein?? "Conservative"? "Scholar"?

Oh for two.

Who cares about the timing? So the information was sat on until it was good for Bush, who cares? It doesn't make what he did any less odious, besides, it's about time the right played by the same rules the left uses. Of course, the left thinks they are the only ones that are allowed to play by them.

This deserves a limerick.

There is always the question of timing,
it's a whole lot easier than sliming,
when your campaign is weak,
and you're unknown on the street,
attack your opponent who's climbing.

Who is McAuliffe kidding?

In light of the seriousness of the possibility that the Bush administration and the Department of Justice have politicized an ongoing investigation, it is imperative that this Freedom of Information request is responded to in an expedited manner.

McCauliffe cuts out Ornstein's other comments.

BLITZER: Susan [Page], is it your understanding that some of these very sensitive classified documents that he may have taken from the National Archives are still missing? That he took original copies -- original documents out, or copies in which the originals are still in place? I read carefully your story on the front page of "USA Today," and it said some of the documents are still missing.

SUSAN PAGE: That's right. Now, I talked to Sandy Berger's lawyer last night, and he said that there are not originals missing, that these are copies of documents, that there is no document that is now of the -- you know, not available to investigators because he took it home.

But I would say, even though we can debate the timing of this, that of course Sandy Berger gave Republicans the ammunition to make this an issue by this peculiar behavior. And I don't think just discussing the timing of the leak takes away from -- from the act itself. That's also part of this story.

BLITZER: I think that's a fair point. Norm, you agree?

ORNSTEIN: Absolutely.

Okay. Let's swap. You tell us who hired Craig Livingstone and we'll give you all the documents we can that further incriminate the whole gaggle of Clintonistas.

I stuffed them down my pants inadvertently.

It depends on what your definition of 'is' is.

I voted for it before I voted against it.

Does anyone else spot a pattern here?

How can such people be taken seriously?

These are the people who are going to lead western civilization in the war against the Islamofacsists? These are the people that we will entrust to deal with Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Hezbollah, the Iranian Mullahs, the Fallujists et al?

There is only one war these Dems are fighting and that is against Bush & Co.
The terrorists don't even register on their radar.

Hmmm.

If the McBergler is such a putz that he can't be trusted around classified documents, especially codeword level Top Secret documents, then he should have been fired a long time ago.

Now I'm a Conservative but it wouldn't matter a bit to me whether the McBergler was a Democrat or a Republican. Anyone that stupid doesn't belong as a top intelligence official.

Now if the Democrats want to continue with this idea that the McBergler is an idiot, then that's ok with me. But that does redound on his past and current employers.

Really now. How much respect am I to have for someone who is such a schmuck that they would not only hire this putz, but keep him on the job?

"pants-pilfered"! I love it! I think I'll start using this all the time. For example: "I almost locked my keys in my car. Luckily I remembered to pants-pilfer them at the last moment."

That's even better than, "After paying for my bagel, I shoved my wallet into my pants."

How about a hypothetical kids?....Let's say that, oh..I don't know, Condi Rice pilfered a bunch of documents before the 9-11 comission could see them. I wonder if Rather, Jennings, Brokaw, NPR, The NYT, The NYP, ad nauseum, would be giving THAT story the mushroom treatment? I'm guessing...um,.....NO!

It's almost like they WANT Bush to lose the election or something.....

Yeah, the public should totally get to see those documents. It's not like they are classified national security material or anything. Oh wait.... Well I guess that pales in compareson to taking out a pound of partisan flesh against Sandy Berger.

Kevin Drum, over on his liberal blog, has a suggestion that the leak was through a clever Democratic operative who wanted the news of the investigation out now instead of the week before the election. That kind of cancels the lefty conspiracy theory since Kevin is a lefty although a level-headed one.

Uh, SB? Who on this thread suggested outing the contents of the documents?

You guys need to get your talking points protocols straight, perhaps a followup fax reminding you not to attack with a meme until the “freep” steps in it. You'll catch on.

lol @ "pilfered"

Berger should've taken the lead from Clinton and...stuffed it in someone else's pants.

In contrast to how we expect the media would have covered a transgression by Reps, maybe this is an example of the two Americas John boy is always yelling about.

youdidyou: "Uh, SB? Who on this thread suggested outing the contents of the documents?"

Stephen did. And he's wrong, wrong, wrong. The suggestion is another smoke screen, as Jim (the first replyer) pointed out.

Regards,
Ric Locke

I'm not suggesting a smokescreen at all.

Berger's stolen documents ought to be made known, although (obviously) in redacted form.

To paraphrase: What did he steal and why did he steal it?

Ah, Terry McDumbass strikes again. I mean, at this point it's obvious that he's *somebody's* mole. The question is: is it Bill Clinton or Karl Rove paying him to be this incompetent? Some historian will get a court order to see his bank records someday, and a great mystery will be solved.

The FOIA exempts the White House from compliance, as McCauliffe knows, since he was on the receiving end of several FOIA requests during Clinton's brunette bimbo period.

Ergo, he will get nothing--and it will take a few months to boot.

Great strategy, Terry! Keep up the hard work.

I BELIEVE THAT THIS IS THE RELEVANT STATUTE, 18 U.S.C. 793 (f), governing Berger's behavior:

Sec. 793. - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information... it then goes on to tell of the penalties for some one who is convicted of the "crime." There are fines and up to 10 years in prison per count. Mr. Berger was dipping into National Secrets and making notes, taking off of the premises documents. Is he going to be charged with the crime or do Democrats get a pass on criminal activity. You have to know the penalties for this, you sign your life away when you go into these reading rooms. Mr. Berger committed a felony against the American People, he should be adjudicated. He "lost" stolen secret documents? Lost them into a shredder, this stinks. If this was your brother, mother, father or you, you would never see the light of day again.

Look, Berger screwed up big time. And I mean BIG time. For a former NSA to steal classified, code word documents, that is a big deal, and reflects badly on anyone who hired him to such an important post.

Now they want to whine about the timing. There would be nothing to time if Berger had not stolen those documents! Let makes this completely clear, Berger stole classified documents. Not just Top Secret, but Top Secret codeword documents. He lost some of them.

Handing an opponent your sword is never a great idea. But don't start whining because your opponent uses it on you, at a time of his choosing, rather than yours. Besides which, it will just show the voters that Dems are not serious about national security.

Some one is working very hard to destroy Kerry's national security team.

Is it Kerry or some one else?

Recently, on Joe Scarborough's(?) show on cable, the network PR analyst asked this telling question: If the Republicans knew of this fact and wanted to make maximum use of it, wouldn't they want to reserve this ammunition for October? That would certainly be the best timing for Repubicans.

However, Berger was, before the current scandal, a "senior" advisor to the Kerry campaign. If he had recently told the Kerry campaign about this embarrassment, do you not think that it would want Berger to resign and air this dirty laundry now rather than waiting for October? The "timing" here would seem to be the product of Democratic spin, which as all such liars do, they attribute to their real or mythical enemies.

As a filmmaker/animator with a small studio I was asked on a time by an agency of the federal government to evaluate a script.

We needed clearance to read the script. We applied. After my brother and I had our lives subjected to fairly intense scrutiny AND I SPENT WEEKS PREPARING A DETAILED PROCEDURE NOTEBOOK for how we would handle any classified data entrusted to us, we received our personal and facility clearances. My efforts were directed, informed, reviewed and corrected by professionals. They made certain we understood both how to maintain the security of confidential information, and the gravity with which the government regards mis-handling of such data.

The education involved was non-trivial.

Journalists evidently neither have nor desire any acquaintance with the rigorous details that govern the treatment of data that are actually critical to the security of our country. A veteran government civil servant of the stature of Mr. Berger has no such excuse. For him to claim that stashing of documents on his person was accidental or inadvertant is so absurd as to be contemptible.The disappearance of any document is fully his responsibility.

Well, there’s always the insanity defense...

David March, animator & fiddler