While debating the US attorneys scandal over at Boortz, I was hit with the “What about Sandy Berger!” line and discoverd this, which was not reported by the Right Wing Echosphere.
We’ve never been considered soft on the Clinton Administration or its leading personalities. So we hope we’ll have some credibility, especially with our friends on the right, when we say that the misdemeanor plea bargain struck by the Justice Department last week with former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger looks to be a reasonable outcome.
Accorrding to the RWE, he’s never been convicted. But it goes on:
After a long investigation, however, Justice says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence. Prosecutors believe Mr. Berger genuinely wanted to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission but felt he was somehow above having to spend numerous hours in the Archives as the rules required, and that he didn’t exactly know how to return the documents once he’d taken them out.
More than a few conservatives have been crying foul, or whitewash, in part because Mr. Berger’s plea means he’ll likely avoid jail and lose his security clearance for only three years. So we called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. “There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals,” said Mr. Hillman. “There is no evidence that he did destroy originals. We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission.”
He was eventually fined $50,000.
By the way, that’s the notoriously left-wing Wall Street Journal. The recent tendency of the right to circulate “facts” which aren’t and the half of stories that support their point of view; the tendency of these “facts” and half-truths to echo from Hannity to Boortz to Limbaugh to Colter; the tendency for them to quote each other as though they were news sources has created a new term for this blog — the Echosphere. There’s also a left-wing Echosphere of pundits that quote each other on how the second ammendment authorized militias and such. But I’m growing sick of it, especially on the Right. Conservatives used to be rugged individualists who came up with their own arguments. Now they’re just a bunch of parrots.
“Who’s a great President!” “Bushie want a cracker!” “Valerie Plame wasn’t undercover!” “Awwk! Awwk!”
Sigh.