There are reports that, among other things, Berger "inadvertently" requested that the rules be suspended for his visits to the archive and have monitors removed, so he could "inadvertently" have private phone conversations from the room in which the documents were held. I can't imagine this is normal procedure.

But he also reportedly took many unescorted bathroom breaks while going over the documents. Perhaps he has a medical problem that would account for this, but one has to wonder if he also found a way to "inadvertently" dispose of inconvenient documents while not even having to leave the facility.

By stating that he's committed ANY of these violations 'inadvertently' he's guilty of the same offense as Martha Stewart -- lying to Gov't investigators! Oh wait, nevermind... It just depends on what your definition of inadvertent is... How clinton-esque.

And another thing, aren't those that are saying it's no big deal the same folks that raise such a fuss when things go missing at Los Alamos? Bit of a double-standard, eh? Talk about elitist and out-of-touch -- careers have been ended for lesser mishandlings of classified docs.

OK, I'm done.

- Eric.

OK, one more...

I suddenly had a flashback to the whole Ollie North's secretary with documents in the pantyhose thing. At least that had the 'virtue' of being titillating. Does bring up some potential Photoshop hijinks though -- Sandy Berger's head on Fawn Hall's body!

As it turns out, of the four Clinton era opportunities to stop 9/11 (ie, capture/kill Saddam Hussein), Sandy Berger apparently nixed every single one of them.

Well, look now to what the 9/11 report has to say about the man to whom President Clinton, under attack by an independent counsel,delegated so much in respect of national security, Samuel ?Sandy? Berger. The report cites a 1998 meeting between Mr. Berger and the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, at which Mr. Tenet presented a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.

?In his meeting with Tenet, Berger focused most, however, on the question of what was to be done with Bin Ladin if he were actually captured. He worried that the hard evidence against Bin Ladin was still skimpy and that there was a danger of snatching him and bringing him to the United States only to see him acquitted,? the report says, citing a May 1, 1998, Central Intelligence Agency memo summarizing the weekly meeting between Messrs. Berger and Tenet.

In June of 1999, another plan for action against Mr. bin Laden was on the table. The potential target was a Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. The commission report released yesterday cites Mr. Berger?s ?handwritten notes on the meeting paper? referring to ?the presence of 7 to 11 families in the Tarnak Farms facility, which could mean 60-65 casualties.?According to the Berger notes, ?if he responds, we?re blamed.?

On December 4, 1999, the National Security Council?s counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: ?In the margin next to Clarke?s suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, ?no.? ?

In August of 2000, Mr. Berger was presented with another possible plan for attacking Mr. bin Laden.This time, the plan would be based on aerial surveillance from a ?Predator? drone. Reports the commission: ?In the memo?s margin,Berger wrote that before considering action, ?I will want more than verified location: we will need, at least, data on pattern of movements to provide some assurance he will remain in place.? ?

In other words, according to the commission report, Mr. Berger was presented with plans to take action against the threat of Al Qaeda four separate times ? Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000. Each time, Mr. Berger was an obstacle to action. Had he been a little less reluctant to act, a little more open to taking pre-emptive action, maybe the 2,973 killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks would be alive today.

It really doesn?t matter now what was in the documents from the National Archives that Mr. Berger says he inadvertently misplaced. The evidence in the commission?s report yesterday is more than enough to embarrass him thoroughly.He is a hardworking, warm man with a wonderful family, but his background as a trade lawyer and his dovish, legalistic and political instincts made him, in retrospect,the tragically wrong man to be making national security decisions for America in wartime.That Senator Kerry had Mr. Berger as a campaign foreign policy adviser even before the archives scandal is enough to raise doubts about the senator?s judgment.