Keeping Kerry in the dark allows Berger to take the hit for Clinton’s NSA failings, and most of the fallout will attach not to Bill but to Kerry–interestingly, BEFORE the election gets serious. That is, at a point when Kerry may be wounded but not mortally so.

Kerry’s national security credentials are diminished, leaving standing only three nationally-prominent national security Democrats: Biden, Lieberman, and the junior senator from New York.

Biden’s not a candidate; Lieberman’s a failed candidate. Edwards has no standing to speak of on natl security. Only Hillary could reasonably cover the Dems’ flank on national security if Kerry were to suddenly be viewed as, shall we say, not having a clue (see http://hughhewitt.com/#postid693) about Berger’s grave offense.

Cherchez La Hillary.

Dick Morris, thoughts please?

“Just consider it a little spring training for the next eight years.”

What, are you saying that if Kerry wins we can expect eight years of appalling security breaches?

For once I think I agree with you.

“My name is Ozimandius,king of kings,look upon my works,ye mighty and despair”

Humble ain’t he?

If the law was broken, then the person should be prosecuted. You should read the law.It will be a tough prosecution because it involves intent.But if the law was broken, then the law should be defended.

Just trying to get a handle on how much credibility to grant y’all.

He will resort to the most popular defense in the Democratic party these days, I did it because I could, because of my dual natures, and because Ken Starr made me do it

Whilst there may be no story to Bergers actions,there certainly is a joke.As an ordinary person,I find it hilarious that the former National Security Advisor got caught stealing and was so dumb he went back several times to steal the copies. “Hmmmm,I could have sworn I took that yesterday,still they’ll never think of the socks”

Perhaps he missed his work so much he took it home with him?

I’m surprised he hasn’t used the Lord of the Rings defence.

Ladies and Gentlemen may I offer you Mountebank,a quack who declaims his wares from a podium, a charlatan,a buffoon,seems to cover the the mint tea drinker and the paper fetishist.

I normally assume that monumental arrogance is a given for all the big dogs.

I have no reason to doubt that Deutch’s offense was several orders of magnitude greater than Bergers, although it’s hard for me to understand how so serious an offense as Deutch’s might only be punishable by a year in jail.

As I understand it, the docs that Berger swiped were coded for the highest level of security possible. To this outsider, that means the docs would be dangerous to national security in the wrong hands. Berger took a series of these and can’t account for all that he took. Some might have been destroyed, but I’d need proof to believe that. If Berger is found to be culpable he deserves far more than a slap on the wrist. Now the statute and the courts might disagree. Perhaps, we need to assess.

John Deutch was not suffering from laziness or looking at convience when he used his computer for CIA business. It was arrogance. That is the kind of kind of arrogance that Berger is showing. In Deutch’s case, the arrogance could express itself by an attitude that says “I am DCI, so if I want to do work on my home computer I will.” Berge shows his arrogance by authorizing him self to take documents from the archives to [perhaps] save his former boss and patron from scandal. They were both willful actions that would have had more serious consequences for your basic GS-15 (that’s me)