Monday, April 04, 2005

Sticky Sandy Berger and the Silence of the MSM

So Sticky Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton’s National Security Advisor and John Kerry’s Campaign Advisor on Foreign Affairs, has plead guilty to a single count of "unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.”
Sticky originally took five copies of an “after-action report” -- one during his September 2003 visit to the National Archives and four during his October 2003 trip. When Archives officials contacted him after they realized some documents were missing, he told them about the two copies he had and returned them, along with the handwritten notes he had taken. Originally, he told investigators nothing of the remaining three copies; later he admitted to officials that he then used scissors to cut up three copies that night while at his office.

My question is, how much of our National Security has been compromised? And who, if anyone, did Sticky Sandy show these memos to? Of course, the most logical (and calm-headed) reading of these events is that Sticky stole and destroyed these documents in order to cover up failures in Clinton-era national security in the area of terrorism (and then lied at first about doing so). But a National Security advisor absconding with and shredding sensitive documents concerning an active (9/11 Committee) Congressional investigation should be a pretty big story, right? Especially when he is a policy advisor to a former Presidential candidate?

Well, not in our Mainstream Media! This story has been relegated to “page A14” type of coverage, buried as filler between back-page advertising. No questions have been asked as to possible damage to National Security, or even what exactly may have been in these documents that was so unnerving to Sticky and Bill C. that they had to be stolen and shredded. Now of course, if this were a Republican involved, we would have heard:
-the word “Watergate” applied as often as the media has applied “Vietnam”
-countless editorials crying out “Full Disclosure!”, “Taking Responsibility”, “Republican Obstructionism” as well as endless calls for investigations on who knew what and when...
-concerns about an election “compromised” by the stealing of internal documents
-non-stop coverage, both front-page and broadcast lead-in, on this scandal.

But we get none of this, from the media who ran days of front-page stories based on childishly forged documents, and who spilled tons of ink on the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson affair, which was “criminal” until it turns out that the media’s sources were in danger of being indicted (by an investigation they themselves championed).

No comments either on the ridiculously light punishment Sticky will receive…only a three year suspension of National Security Clearance - why not PERMANENT? A $10K fine? (easily affordable to a Clintonite) And no prison time? Geez, Martha Stewart must have had one really sh*tty lawyer…

Nevertheless, in every article I’ve read on Sticky Sandy, there has been a number of quotes from supporters saying “he’s a good guy”, it was a “honest mistake”, and expressing hope that this incident “doesn’t harm his reputation”. NOT ONE QUOTE showing disgust, outrage, or even a dissenting opinion! No attempt at being “evenhanded” when it is one of your own, right boys?

No, the Mainstream Media is trying its best to flush this story down the Memory Hole (they’re probably desperately PhotoShopping some torture pics as we speak). Otherwise, they may have to own up to the fact that every negative tag they spent a whole election cycle trying to pin on Republicans is actually true of their dear Democratic party. They can’t do that; even in the face of facts they cannot overcome their cognitive dissonance, so they bury it, like a paranoid buries evidence of his instability. They want us to forget, because they need to forget…

Don’t let them. Please.

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