The Berger story is total BS, and the Democratic leadership response--Daschle, that is--is feckless.
First of all, Berger is a great public servant. Last night on "Newsnight," David Gergen said "I am a friend of Sandy Berger's and I have utmost faith in his integrity and believe he has served this country enormously well. He's one of the heroes in the war on terrorism in my book. Let me just say I think this has been blown way out of proportion and it is much more innocent than it looks." (The must-read transcipt is here:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/20/asb.00.html)
Richard Clark agrees. In "Against All Enemies," he says Berger had "an unparalleled skill in seeing the many ways something could develop and go wrong." He also quotes Berger as saying, "We have stopped two sets of attacks planned for Millenium. You can bet your measly federal paycheck that here are more out there and we have to stop them too... this is it, nothing more important, all assets" (p. 212).
[Side note: This citizen is forced to wonder, Would 9/11 have happened if Bush's people were as concerned about terrorism, instead of from the get-go so ideologically blinded by Iraq?]
Berger took COPIES and hand-written NOTES from a secure location in preperation for his testimony in front of the 9/11 commission. THis is in no way a major story--what Berger did has NOT made us less safe, which should be the only criteria for this issue being so beaten to hell by the media. Instead, the real story here is that an indespensible public servant with an expertise on terrorism has been forced to resign from John Kerry's campaign and may be therefore ineligible for any cabinet position in the potential Kerry cabinet. This smearjob, therefore, is what has made us less safe. It is outrageous that the Republicans have brought this up like they have.
This is such a baseless story and transparent attempt by the immoral Republican leadership to distract attention from their problems, at considerable cost to the country. These are questions that need to be asked:
Who leaked the investigation?
Why now?
Possible answers to the latter: the 9/11 report due out; the upcoming Democratic convention; Plame indictments; security breaches at Los Alamos (under Bush this time; you can't blame Bill Richardson for this one--the same guy who's chairman of what? The Democratic Convention, of course...). And why aren't the media looking into the former?
Come on Democratic leadership, don't defend yourself against these Republican hacks. Don't give once inch of ground. Ram it right back down their damned throats.