My thoughts exactly.
WaPo Editorial:
IT'S STILL NOT clear why former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger improperly removed secret documents from the National Archives last year. Whether it was a mistake or not, Mr. Berger's conduct, the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI, was reprehensible, and he was right to resign as a Kerry adviser.
Still, it's hard not to be repulsed by the reaction to the affair by President Bush's campaign spokesmen and Republicans in Congress. They have suggested, without foundation, that Mr. Berger took the papers to benefit Mr. Kerry, who says that he knew nothing of the matter; House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has spoken, with gross hyperbole, of a "national security crisis." Having squelched congressional examination of a genuine national security scandal -- the involvement of U.S. military commanders in grave violations of the Geneva Conventions in Iraq -- House leaders, including Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), have rushed to announce hearings on the Berger affair. As happened so often during the Clinton administration, they are treating a real but apparently limited case of misconduct as an opportunity to misuse congressional oversight powers to wage partisan warfare.
It's worth noting that news of the months-old investigation of Mr. Berger just happened to leak on the week before the Democratic convention, and two days before the release of the Sept. 11 commission's report -- which covers serious lapses by President Bush as well as President Bill Clinton. Officials at the Bush White House had been briefed on the Berger probe. Could that be a coincidence?
NY Times Editorial:Exactly why Samuel Berger removed copies of classified documents from the National Archives last October is not clear. If, as Mr. Berger says, the removal was simply a blunder, it was inexcusably careless legally and daft politically.
Meanwhile, the Republican hyperventilating is overdone. The same Congressional leaders who shrugged at the leaking of a C.I.A. agent's identity to punish her husband, a critic of administration policy, demand hearings on Mr. Berger. The politicians should all let the Justice Department do its job.
Of real concern is that bleeding, yet again, of politics into criminal justice. After initially claiming it knew nothing of the case, the White House has had to admit it was informed. That sort of heads-up taints both sides. It leaves the White House open to questions about whether it timed a leak to the release of the 9/11 panel's report, and it feeds cynicism about the independence of federal prosecutors.
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