The Case of the Documents in the Night

By Aussiegirl

Dick Morris gets it right when he says Sandy Berger has joined the pantheon of those who have rolled over in order to protect the Clintons.

The crucial paragraph in his column appears at the end, that revealing the contents of the memo that he destroyed may well have had a fatal impact on what is left of Cinton's legacy, and on Hillary's chances for the presidency in 2008.

My question is: Why is the Bush administration seemingly so intent on protecting the Clintons' record? And why do they seem to be doing everything in their power to court the Clintons?

Can they actually believe that they can influence Hillary to see the light and suddenly become a benevolent dictator when and if she finally achieves her lifelong dream of being president? If so, they are dreamers of the most dangerous kind.

This Hall of Ill-Fame includes Susan McDougal, Vince Foster, Monica Lewinsky, Johnnie Chung, former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and old Webb himself. What they each have in common is their silence and willingness to take the fall to protect the Clintons.

. . . Picture the fevered atmosphere in the months after 9/11. Any indication by the commission investigating the attack that the Clinton administration hadn't taken terrorism seriously would badly damage the former president's reputation and the former first lady's chances.

Any loyal adviser would have worked to mitigate the possible damage. The measure of how serious the damage may have been is how far Berger risked falling to prevent it � and how far he did fall rather than reveal why.

(And how far the Bush administration and the Bush Justice Department appear ready to go to sweep all of this under the rug by administering a shockingly weak slap on the wrist. Handily, Berger will have his security clearance back just in time to be Hillary Clinton's Secretary of State or National Security Advisor, not to mention that the loss of security clearance can be tabled if he is offered a job in the meantime which requires a clearance -- in essence, he could be offered a job tomorrow and all would be forgiven. This does not pass even the sniff sense, much less the smell test.)