More proof of the liberal media conspiracy...I'm expecting charges any day now. http://mediamatters.org/items/200407230001 http://mediamatters.org/static/video/berger-roundup.wmv Anatomy of a smear: Sandy Berger "socks" shocker Lies, blind quotes, and innuendo rampant in Berger coverage On July 19, the Associated Press was the first to report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger for allegedly illegally removing classified documents and personal notes from the National Archives last fall during preparations for his appearance before the 9-11 Commission. This much is known: Berger and his lawyer, Lanny Breuer, have said for the record that: 1) Berger inadvertently put several copies of classified documents into a leather portfolio he was carrying; and 2) that Berger put handwritten notes, which he had made while reviewing the documents, in his jacket and in his pants pockets. But rumors and confusion abound in media coverage: Media confuses originals and copies. As the story unfolded between July 20 and July 22, conservative pundits have run with speculation that Berger removed original classified documents, rather than copies, from the archive and then destroyed them as part of a cover-up. But there is no evidence to support this accusation; in fact, according to The Washington Post, "The documents removed were copies; the National Archives retained the originals." Media propounds rumor that Berger placed documents in his socks and pants. It was reported -- notably by CNN -- that Berger put the classified documents into his pants and/or his socks -- allegations that Breuer has said are "false" and "ridiculous" and for which there is no on-the-record substantiation. This reportage was then amplified by MSNBC hosts Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, and Pat Buchanan; by the New York Daily News and the New York Post; by Ann Coulter and Kellyanne Conway; by a slew of right-wing columnists like Linda Chavez and Cal Thomas; and by right-wing radio show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage. Worse still, some of these same media outlets and media personalities falsely attributed to Berger and his lawyer the claim that Berger had put the classified documents into his pants and/or socks -- even after Berger and his lawyer said Berger had not done so. Media confuses Berger's removal of copies of classified documents with his removal of his own handwritten notes. According to a New York Times article, the legal issue for Berger largely will rest on his claim that he removed copies of classified documents by accident. Berger's lawyer told the Times that the removal of handwritten notes is a "technical" violation; according to a July 22 Washington Post article, it is a "violation of Archives rules." Berger's defense is plausible only if the media asserts it accurately -- that Berger removed the copies of classified documents inadvertently in his leather folder and removed his own handwritten notes by putting them in his pockets. Yet in media coverage monitored by Media Matters for America, these unresolved issues -- which are still under investigation -- metastasized into a portrait of a man who had supposedly stolen original secret documents to withhold them from the investigative authorities by covertly sticking them down his pants and in his socks. Only a smattering of "sources," unnamed government and law enforcement officials, and baseless assertions have been cited to back up this portrait. The net effect was seemingly to convict Berger in the media before the investigation has run its course and before all the facts are known. MMFA has examined two main threads of the still-unfolding Berger story -- what Berger took and where he put it -- and has documented other dubious assertions, including outright statements of guilt, bizarre conspiracy theories, and comparisons of the Berger matter to the Watergate scandal. #1: Berger stole original documents and destroyed them 9-11 Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg has stated that the commission is not missing documents. "This is a matter between the government and an individual," he told USA Today. "They were not our documents, and we believe we have access to all the materials we need to see to do our report." Yet this statement did not end the speculation in The Washington Post and the assertions by Limbaugh, FOX News Channel host Sean Hannity, Coulter, and CNN host Tucker Carlson that Berger removed the documents in order to hide them. In a July 21 article, Washington Post staff writer Susan Schmidt reported, "The documents that were removed were copies; the National Archives retained the originals." Yet, in the same article, she hinted at the possibility of a cover-up: "Even as Berger acknowledged his actions, it remained unclear the degree to which they stemmed from carelessness or an intentional effort to hide and remove the documents, along with notes of the materials he was reviewing." She did not explain how Berger would have succeeded in hiding anything by removing only copies and not originals. Media conservatives were bolder, repeatedly claiming that Berger had removed and/or destroyed incriminating documents in order to prevent the 9-11 Commission from seeing them -- claims belied by the commission's own statement and by The Washington Post's report that the documents were "copies." (FOX News Channel host and radio host Bill O'Reilly was an exception here, saying, "I want to stay away from the speculation. But even so, he's not going to cover up anything because the 9-11 Commission had access to all of the original documents. They were going to see what Berger saw, whether he took these copies out or not.") Radio host RUSH LIMBAUGH: The stuff that was stolen, the stuff that's probably now been shredded, the stuff that he just inadvertently, sloppily can't find, you know what the -- those documents contained? Elements of evidence that Al Qaeda was in the country in 1999. [7/20] FOX News Channel co-host SEAN HANNITY: The only reason I can imagine that he would do this is to cover something up. And that would be that he found something there that made him, Bill Clinton, his administration, look bad, and that politics is being played here. That is a serious charge. And I don't know if we'll ever be able to get to the bottom of it, because who knows what happened to a lot of these documents. [...] Hannity's guest and right-wing pundit ANN COULTER: That's right. No, that's right. And if he is going to be engaging in a way, subjecting himself to criminal investigation and probably prosecution, they must have been pretty damning documents, presumably suggesting Al Qaeda may not have been the A-number one priority of the Clinton administration as they have been saying. [FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 7/20] CNN Crossfire co-host TUCKER CARLSON: [T]here is nothing random about the documents he took. Berger stripped the files of every single copy of a single memo which detailed the Clinton administration's response to the Y2K terror threat. [7/22] MSNBC Hardball host CHRIS MATTHEWS also suggested a cover-up: What would be worse, he removed documents to destroy them and keep them from reaching public light as to the role the Clinton administration played or didn't play in fighting terrorism after the millennium incident back in -- back in the -- in the Clinton administration, or that he simply took the documents to help make a case for the Kerry nomination, the Kerry presidency? [7/21] Notwithstanding Breuer's unchallenged assertion that Berger took only copies and his own handwritten notes, and notwithstanding the commission's confidence that it had access to all relevant information, FOX & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade described the issue of what was taken as "critical" and questioned the commission's level of confidence. FOX & Friends co-host BRIAN KILMEADE: It is very critical. There were number of drafts of that report. It is some of those drafts that are missing. One of the government spokespersons for the 9-11 Commission says they are "confident" they didn't say they are sure. They are "confident" that they have all the documents. [7/21] #2: Berger stuffed documents down his pants, hid them in his socks At the beginning of the news cycle on July 19, the Associated Press reported that Berger and his lawyer said that he had put handwritten notes in his jacket and pants. By referring to "pants," rather than "pants pockets" this report fostered the impression that Berger had done something highly unusual; and by asserting that Berger and his lawyer acknowledged that this is what happened, the AP allowed the "pants" claim to be accepted as fact. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had made while reading classified anti-terror documents at the archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. [7/19] In fact, contrary to the AP's suggestion that Berger acknowledged "putting documents in his ... pants," Breuer was quoted in The New York Times on July 21 saying that while Berger had put his handwritten notes in his jacket and pants pockets, "If there's a suggestion that he's shoving things down his pants, that is categorically false and ridiculous." Thus, the distinction Breuer drew in the Times that had been obscured in the AP story -- putting handwritten notes into pants pockets versus putting handwritten notes into pants -- was all but lost. One exception came during a panel discussion on FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume: Roll Call executive editor and regular FOX News Channel contributor Morton M. Kondracke and National Public Radio national political correspondent Mara Liasson both made the distinction as they debated syndicated Washington Post columnist and FOX News Channel contributor Charles Krauthammer. From the July 21 edition of FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume: KRAUTHAMMER: Well, it's not going to be a political impact, but it is a puzzle. What was stuffing in his pants and why? KONDRACKE: You know -- you know, there is a part of your pants called your pockets! It makes it a little less nefarious. KRAUTHAMMER: I don't know anybody who stuffs in his pants inadvertently. I mean he had a reason ... LIASSON: Maybe it was his pockets. KRAUTHAMMER: It would be interesting. And obviously, it was done in a way so that he would not be discovered as he left the room. In much subsequent coverage, the distinction between the classified documents and the handwritten notes was also lost; Berger's "stuffing" or "shoving" of documents in his pants became the media shorthand for what had happened. Of course, if Berger had stuffed the classified documents in his pants, rather than putting his handwritten notes in his pants pockets, his defense -- that he had removed the classified documents inadvertently by mixing them up with other papers in his leather portfolio -- would be rendered implausible before the investigation could reach a conclusion. LIMBAUGH: Ah, and I'm tempted to call this "Trousergate." [laughter] But I'm trying to keep this on the up-and-up. But since we're talking about stuffs -- the things stuffed in the pants, it's hard to even do that. [7/20] FOX News Channel Hannity & Colmes co-host HANNITY: How many people do you know shove documents down their pants? [Hannity was interviewing former Berger spokesman P.J. Crowley, who questioned his source for the characterization. Hannity replied that he had read it in the Associated Press and other newspapers.] [7/21] Syndicated columnist CAL THOMAS: That Berger felt a need to slip some of the classified documents in his jacket and stuff others in his pants may say something about his true motive. [7/20] In the July 22 edition of The Washington Post, in an apparent effort to clarify the muddle of fact and rumor to which the paper had arguably contributed, staff writers John F. Harris and Susan Schmidt compounded the problem. By failing to state clearly Berger's defense -- that he inadvertently mixed copies of classified documents with his own papers in his leather portfolio and that he placed his own handwritten notes in his jacket and pants pockets -- the story set up a direct conflict between Breuer's assertions that Berger inadvertently took copies of classified documents and the Post's assertion that "Berger was witnessed stuffing papers into his clothing." The morning after the AP story was published, CNN reported on July 20 that Berger had put documents in his socks, making Berger's defense that he had taken the documents inadvertently even more implausible. CNN national correspondent Bob Franken reported, "There are two law enforcement sources, however, who tell CNN chief justice correspondent, Kelli Arena, that Berger was seen stuffing some of the documents in his socks." When CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Breuer about the socks story between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. (ET) on Wolf Blitzer Reports, the lawyer called it "categorically false and ridiculous." Yet the very next day, the socks story was either being treated as fact, with no on-the-record substantiation (the New York Daily News; NewsMax.com; MSNBC's Matthews and Scarborough; Ann Coulter; Tony Blankley; and Kellyanne Conway), or was the subject of credulous speculation (FOX News Channel hosts E.D. Hill, Steve Doocy, and John Gibson, as well as Linda Chavez and NRANews.com). MSNBC Hardball guest TONY BLANKLEY, editor of The Washington Times' editorial page, described the effect: Look, CNN, which is not a tabloid, was reporting that they have some source, government source, saying he was putting it in his socks. There is a big difference between putting something in your pocket, which you can do almost inadvertently. ... And stuffing it down a trouser or in a sock, which obviously bespeaks an attempt to be covert. [7/21] NRANews.com host CAM EDWARDS: Apparently the staff there in this secure reading room noticed Sandy Berger stuffin[g] his -- stuffing his pants and his socks and his jacket with items. [NRANews.com, Cam & Company, 7/20] ANN COULTER: Right. I think that's the important question that no one is asking, what was he hiding when he inadvertently stuffed the documents in his pants and in his socks. And I know that liberals... Somehow they leave the room, and two witnesses see him putting them [the documents] in his socks and his pants. [Hannity & Colmes, July 20] NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: But Berger's bizarre actions -- including allegations that he stuffed some documents into his socks -- could not help but fuel GOP cries of a coverup. ... An Archives staffer reported seeing the papers sticking out of a leg of Berger's pants, saying "it could have been white socks, except that [Berger] was wearing a dark suit," according to a government source. [7/21] NEWSMAX.COM: Law enforcement officials are contradicting denials from Sandy Berger's lawyer and two friends who say the former national security adviser never stuffed super-secret 9/11 documents into his socks during three or more visits to the National Archives last fall. Reports CNN's Bob Franken: "Three law enforcement sources talking to CNN's Justice Department correspondent Kelli Arena [say] they saw him, or that he had been seen, putting documents in his socks." [7/21] MSNBC Hardball host CHRIS MATTHEWS: Right, but you don't jam it in your socks though if that's what you're... [7/21] MSNBC's Scarborough Country host JOE SCARBOROUGH: Day two of Sockgate and still no charges against the former Clintonite. ... What could he [Berger] have been doing with these documents that he reportedly was stuffing in his jacket, his pants and his socks? [7/21] Republican strategist KELLYANNE CONWAY: And look, I'm sure it's never an opportune time to find out that one's national security advisor may be a thief. And it certainly is plausible that he innocently took those documents, but when you innocently pick up a file that doesn't belong to you, you usually don't stick it in your socks or in your pants. [FOX News Channel, The Big Story with John Gibson, 7/21] Syndicated columnist LINDA CHAVEZ: Surely it was an innocent mistake, former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger's stuffing classified documents into his pants, jacket and perhaps even his socks before leaving the National Archives building last fall. [7/20] FOX News Channel FOX & Friends co-hosts STEVE DOOCY and E.D. HILL: DOOCY: By the way, what was the name of the cat during the Clinton administration? ...Socks. ...Coincidence? HILL: I don't think we know exactly where he says -- where he stuffed the documents. We've heard the briefcase. We have heard his socks. We've heard his pants. We've heard his coat. [7/21] FOX News Channel host JOHN GIBSON: Did Sandy Berger purloin secret documents? Did he stuff them in his clothes, his pants, and even his socks to secrete the secret out of the National Archives? These are the facts that matter. [The Big Story with John Gibson, 7/21] Internet gossip Matt Drudge and FOX News Channel not only reported the socks story but falsely attributed it to Berger and his lawyer. Hannity, Savage, Buchanan, and the New York Post made the same false attribution. DRUDGE linked to FOX News' report claiming that "Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks." [7/20] ABC Radio Host SEAN HANNITY: Now Berger, through his lawyer -- in typical Clintonesque fashion -- said he knowingly removed the handwritten notes, he placed them in his jacket, he stuffed them. ... [laughing] And he rolled them up in his socks. I mean, I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this thing. ... But see, stuffing -- here's a former national security adviser; he knows the rules and regulations about this and there he is, stuffing his jacket, his pants and his socks and then -- quote -- inadvertently I took copies out in my leather portfolio. I deeply regret the sloppiness of sticking them in my pants, the sloppiness of sticking them in my socks, the sloppiness of stealing them. [7/20] Right-wing radio host MICHAEL SAVAGE: Berger and his lawyer said last night, he knowingly removed the handwritten notes, by placing them in his jacket, pants, and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio. ... The Democrats would like that because it would go away. It would all be dismissed as just a-- sort of a prank. Sort of a college prank. That he just simply took top secret documents and stuffed 'em in his underwear. [Savage Nation, 7/20] From a July 20 discussion between MSNBC host JOE SCARBOROUGH and his guest, MSNBC analyst PAT BUCHANAN: SCARBOROUGH: Sandy Berger ... took highly classified documents and allegedly stuffed them in his trousers and socks. [...] BUCHANAN: Look, this man said that he inadvertently took them with him. But apparently, he stuck them in his socks, in his pants, everywhere on his body. [...] SCARBOROUGH: But why would somebody like Sandy Berger do -- why would he go into a secure location, gather these documents, stuff them possibly in his socks, in his pants, in his jacket... [...] BUCHANAN: The likelihood ... is that he came across something that was so embarrassing or so humiliating or so incriminating that Sandy Berger put his career on the line. His lawyer said he put these things in his socks. NEW YORK POST editorial: "t wasn't just his pants into which Berger says he stuffed a bunch of classified documents to sneak them out of the National Archives: He crammed some into his socks, too." [The Post ran a screaming headline, "SOCKED."] (7/21)] Finally, some media figures were not content to simply spread unsubstantiated rumors. MSNBC's Chris Matthews invoked Watergate. Others spun or revived discredited conspiracy theories. MSNBC Hardball host CHRIS MATTHEWS: If you had heard about someone else, say, on the other side politically or anywhere else, someone on the Republican side, that someone had gone in the National Archives during the Watergate affair, for example, and had turned out to be taking stuff out of the room that they weren't supposed to, would you assume they were bad guys? [7/21] CNN Crossfire guest ROB GRAY, Republican strategist: It may well be another Democrat who doesn't like Sandy Berger [who leaked word of the investigation to reporters]. It may be the first volley in the Hillary '08 campaign. He's a John Kerry foreign policy adviser. She doesn't want to see John Kerry win. [ 7/21] [Media Matters for America has documented numerous instances of conservatives suggesting that Senator Clinton wants Kerry to lose in November to clear her path to the White House in 2008.] LIMBAUGH: One thing we can be sure of, ladies and gentlemen, is these missing documents will not show up in the Map Room of the White House like the Rose Law Firm billing records, unless there is a former Clinton administration official who can worm his way back into the White House and plant them there -- and Sandy Burglar, stay away from Fort Marcy Park [in Northern Virginia, where former White House deputy counsel Vince Foster's body was found after he committed suicide]. [7/20] [Media Matters for America has documented other recent instances in which Limbaugh referred to Fort Marcy Park in an attempt to resurrect the long-discredited right-wing claim that Foster was murdered and that the Clintons were involved.]
Everytime Limbaugh uses Fort Marcy Park,. it's always as a joke. I am not aware of him ever giving serious play to the Vince Foster conspiracies. As for as old Sticky Fingers, well only a lawyer would believe that this was inadvertent.
Gwaynie, while I usually don't deign, and am not an avid listener of Rush's, I'm willing to wager that old Rush & co., at some point in the last 12 years has pushed the zaniest of zany conspiracy theories against WJC and HRC in earnest. When that kind of thing appears on the WSJ editorial page, along with allegations that the Clintons were drug trafficking via remote Arkansas airstrips, it's a safe inference that Rush has done far worse, IMO.
Osama Bin Fisher, So, you don't listen, but you say that he probably said it. Have you ever heard him seriously suggest that Vince Foster's death was not a suicide? I certainly have not.
On his March 10 radio broadcast, Limbaugh had announced the following in urgent tones: OK, folks, I think I got enough information here to tell you about the contents of this fax that I got. Brace yourselves. This fax contains information that I have just been told will appear in a newsletter to Morgan Stanley sales personnel this afternoon.... What it is is a bit of news which says...there's a Washington consulting firm that has scheduled the release of a report that will appear, it will be published, that claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton, and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park. Limbaugh was referring to an item in a newsletter put out by the Washington, D.C. firm of Johnson Smick International. The newsletter, relating a rumor that has no apparent basis in fact, reported that White House attorney Foster's suicide occurred in an apartment owned by White House associates, and that his body was moved to the park where it was found. Limbaugh took this baseless rumor from a small insiders' newsletter and broadcast it to his radio audience of millions, adding his own new inaccuracies: The newsletter did not report--as Limbaugh claimed--that Foster was murdered, or that the apartment was owned by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Limbaugh's repetition of an unfounded rumor has been credited (Chicago Tribune, 3/11/94; Newsweek, 3/21/94) with contributing to a plunge in the stock market on the day it was aired. http://www.fair.org/extra/9407/koppel-limbaugh.html
Didn't hear it. Besides, this is all a smoke screen by the George Soros financed Media Matters David Brockians. Sandy is either the dumbest person ever to be a NSA or he is up to something. His best defense now is stupidity.
Is that your excuse? Now on to more substantive matters. from: http://windsofchange.net/archives/005295.php July 30, 2004 Security Breach: The Real Follies of the Berger Affair by Trent Telenko at July 30, 2004 05:36 AM The Blogosphere has heavily covered Sandy Berger's security breach of the National Archives, and the many angles that the mainstream media and particularly the Washington Post and New York Times have avoided. Yet for all that there are no real evaluations of: How badly the National Archives screwed up the security of code letter secret documents; How badly the system of notification of security breaches was abused; and How badly Sandy Berger screwed over American national security. Cell phones are not secure, and Berger's security breach using a cell phone from a secure document vault is the kind of thing that could result in tens of thousands of preventable American civilian deaths if my worst fears bear out. None of these issues are trivial - and unfortunately, the scenario for #3 isn't a big stretch. Blogosphere Reactions Here at Winds of Change Sandy Berger affair has been addressed once already with Celeste Bilby's post: "Sandy Berger: Inadvertent My Foot." She did well to capture the anger felt by of those of us in the federal government or defense & intelligence related industries, about the security abuses Sandy Berger was allowed to perpatrate. Glenn Reynolds "Flooded the zone" with more then a half dozen posts: 24th: Horse, Barn. Door. New security measures at the National Archives 23rd: Berger was an obstacle to action Against Bin Laden 22nd: A reference to Berger in the 9/11 Commission Report may explain a lot 22nd: Should Berger be the issue? 22nd: Lileks' column 22nd: What did Kerry know, and when did he know it? 22nd: The New York Times' shameless spin and denial, vs. other media reactions 21st: Rules in the National Archives not the same for everybody, it seems ...setting the pace for the Blogosphere. I think Roger L. Simon understood exactly what Berger was up to in his post The Follies Berger – Clue No. 304 when he made the point that Berger was systematically eliminating drafts of Millennium Terrorist Bomb Plot after action report that had hand written notes from Clinton Administration officials, his own specifically, and that this elimination fatally compromised the record of events. The Pittsburgh Tribune- Review added its own twist on that here. It gets worse. From the NY Post: "Urgent complaints that the FBI could not decipher bugged conversations between members of a Brooklyn mosque and Afghan terrorists because it lacked translators were included in the documents former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger removed from the National Archives, The Post has learned." One of the comments over on Belgravia Dispatch also explained why Berger was given that access to those records for the 9/11 Commission, and noticed something else: "The Justice Department should have informed the White House Counsel's office ASAP because the matter had to do with documents belonging to the Office of the Presidency, the Executive Branch. The context that the NYT "journalists" failed to convey is that Berger was the Executive Branch's and Bill Clinton's agent in reviewing the former administration's holdings for documents that met the 9/11 Commission's criteria. Here's what happened. Berger was on a mission for the executive branch – the 9/11 commission wanted papers that may have qualified for executive privilege. The commission contacted either Bill Clinton or his attorney, Bruce Lindsey, who delegated Berger to review the former administration's holdings for documents that met the commission's criteria. That's why when National Archives employees noticed irregularities in Berger's handling of the documents, they notified Lindsey, as Clinton's lawyer and representative to the NA. The NA's inspector general was probably involved immediately.) When NA IG determined that documents were missing, it notified the Justice Department. Justice should have immediately notified the counsel for the current administration because any crime that may have been committed might be against the office of the president. Justice would properly conduct the investigation, but the executive branch has an interested based on the constitutional separation of powers." 3 Critical Points There are several points here. In addition to destroying documents, Sandy Berger was acting as an agent of the executive branch for the 9/11 Commission and was screening the information that was to be provided to them. The Bush Administration did not choose Berger to do this. The 9/11 Commission did. Then the Commission saw only what Berger wanted them to see via hiding behind the Executive Privilege implied by constitutional separation of powers. This makes the 9/11 Commission report worthless. The Commission did not see what Berger, Gorleck and Ben Veniste did not wish them to see, with the cooperation of Co-Chairmen's Kean and Hamilton. Second, the National Archives saw multiple egregious security violation occur and DID NOTHING. They did not call security to stop and search Berger for the classified documents he stuck in his pants, his socks and his leather folder. They did not stop him from taking and keeping notes on those classified documents. Then they let it happen twice. The first time Berger did it and the second time during their "sting." Third, there were multiple and repeated breakdowns in the reporting of this security breach. "The Kid" already mentioned the one between the Justice Department and the White House Council. There were others. This is from Representative Chris Cox on the breakdown between the 9/11 Commission and Congress's Intelligence Committees over what Berger did: "Established protocols for informing the congressional intelligence committees of the security breach were not followed. Nor, at Tuesday's briefing to the House Leadership by the Commission, could Chairman Tom Kean and Co-Chairman Lee Hamilton say whether the specific documents destroyed by Mr. Berger had at any prior time been inspected and reviewed by commission staff. Yet the documents involved, written by former National Security Council aide Richard Clarke, have been at the center of the controversy over the adequacy of the Clinton administration's response to the growing al Qaeda threat. While many are concerned with which laws may have been broken, a more fundamental question is why Mr. Berger, by any objective reckoning a subject of the Commission's investigation, was reviewing sensitive materials in order to determine which Clinton administration documents would be provided to the Commission. The destroyed documents reportedly contained more than two dozen recommendations for action against Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network -- a measuring stick for the Clinton administration's response." So, we have the following happening in relation to Sandy Berger: The 9/11 Commission used Sandy Berger as its representative of the Executive Branch in the search for counter terrorism documents from the Clinton Administration. Both it and the National Archives chose not to inform the Congressional intelligence committee's of Sandy Berger's security breach for months most likely in order to protect the credibility of the 9/11 Commission's just published report. This smells to high heaven and should be the subject of Congressional investigations with all parties involved under oath. Further, it is plain fact that everyone in the National Archives involved in setting up that vaunted "sting" of Sandy Berger still knowingly let unique code letter secret level classified documents be stolen and destroyed. Every decision maker involved in letting Berger leave the national archived unsearched, twice, should be fired for cause. Les Folies Berger: The National Security Angle That is not the least of the National Archive's sins. Mr. Berger was allowed to make cellular telephone calls while alone in the secured document vault and likely during his unmonitored rest room breaks at the Archives. See this article from the New York Daily News: Guards left Berger alone, sources say Ex-security adviser reportedly told monitors to violate rules as he took breaks, took files. By James Gordon Meek New York Daily News Washington — Former national security adviser Sandy Berger repeatedly persuaded monitors assigned to watch him review top-secret documents to break the rules and leave him alone, sources said Wednesday. Berger, accused of smuggling some of the secret files out of the National Archives, got the monitors out of the high-security room by telling them he had to make sensitive phone calls. Guards were convinced to violate their own rules by stepping out of the secure room as he looked over documents and allegedly stashed some in his clothing, sources said. "He was supposed to be monitored at all times but kept asking the monitor to leave so he could make private calls," a senior law enforcement source told the Daily News. Berger also took "lots of bathroom breaks" that aroused some suspicion, the source added. It is standard procedure to constantly monitor anyone with a security clearance who examines the type of code-word classified files stored in the underground archives vault." The high level security monitoring of code level secret documents that should have happened did not. Perhaps Berger had a digital camera equipped cell phone. We don't know, because the National Archives so-called security did not examine it, because if they did they would have seized it like they should have seized the documents Berger stuffed into his cloths. Consider for a moment that he may have taken photos/videos of classified documents and transmitted those over an insecure wireless line. The damage if he did is incalculable. Washington D.C. is the capitol of the most powerful nation-state on the face of the planet. Every embassy in the D.C. area has a roof filled with antennas that are not there for satellite dish television. They are there to listen to our telephones, computers and other data transmissions. If Democratic operatives can bug then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's cell phone and have one of their House members give their recordings to the media. It is a certainty that hostile foreign powers are monitoring every cell phone call Sandy Berger makes on the off-chance of "striking it rich." The War on Terrorism has taught us one bitter lesson that both Democrats and the Bush Administration have repeatedly refused to learn, admittedly for different reasons -- OUR ENEMIES COOPERATE. What one terrorist supporting state knows, the whole terrorist network soon learns. This has horrible implications. My "worst case scenario" is as follows: Sandy Berger photographs and e-mails Richard Clark's Millennium After Action Report that included a list of America's port security vulnerabilities The Syrian Embassy's signals intelligence equipment (or that of another unfriendly embassy) intercepts the document or documents. Clark's list of port vulnerabilities is passed on to al-Qaeda via Iran's Mullahs (or another hostile intermediary). In the months since Berger's visits to the National Archives, Iranian and Syrian agents under cover of diplomatic immunity have used that document to case vulnerable American ports for al-Qaeda. al-Qaeda's sleeper cells here in America were passed this detailed targeting information for a terrorist attack before the November Presidential election. If we do have another mass casualty attack on America before the November election's, it may have happened with Sandy Berger's unwitting assistance. What Now? At this point we cannot undo what has been done, but we can take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. First, Republicans need to read every Republican politician or staffer involved in the 9/11 Commission out of any leadership roles in the party and of any future Republican administration. They cannot be trusted not to be fools or back stabbers. Second, the Republican controlled House Government Reform Committee needs to hold hearings on the Berger security breach to pinpoint the security breakdowns and fill the lives of all concerned with lawyers. Above all, it is clear Sandy Berger's cell phone records from several weeks before this security breach to date needs to be subpoenaed and investigated. It is clear that the so-called "bi-partisan" House and Senate Intelligence committees cannot be trusted to do this job. Their very "bi-partisan" nature makes it impossible for them to function given the power Democrat's have on those committees and their overwhelming partisan interest in burying the subject in torrents of hate speech and delay. Last, the Bush Administration needs to start disciplining the Federal bureaucracies when they fail. Bush has steadfastly refused to fire anyone in the Federal bureaucracies for incompetence and by doing so has made their incompetence his own. The retention of Tenet at CIA and the chief of FBI counter-terrorism after 9/11/2001 is proof enough of that. Bush has only fired people when they openly challenged him and displayed disloyalty he could not ignore, as Treasury Secretary O'Neil and US Army Chief of Staff Shinseki demonstrated. America needs to protect its secrets from its foreign enemies before it is too late, and only Presidential leadership can make it happen. If Bush doesn't beak his bad leadership habits soon, before the next major domestic attack by al-Qaeda, he will find out that the American people are nowhere near as forgiving of incompetence as he is.
SHOW: RUSH LIMBAUGH (9:00 PM ET) February 3, 1994, Thursday 11:15 AM LENGTH: 3803 words HEADLINE: CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, NEW YORK POST, INVESTIGATES VINCE FOSTER DEATH, FINDS EVIDENCE SUPPORTS MURDER RATHER THAN SUICIDE ANCHORS: Rush Limbaugh BODY: HOST: Rush Limbaugh EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Roger Ailes (Footage of mock President Clinton writing on a chalkboard) President BILL CLINTON': I will ask Hillary first.' Darn, I hate it when she makes me do something like this. (Laughter) Pres. CLINTON': Come on, Hillary. Can I stop now? Ms. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON': Fifty more to go, Bill. (Laughter) (Graphic shown) America Held Hostage 380-Middle Class 399-Rich and Dead 1,080-Days Remaining I Will Ask Hillary First ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Rush Limbaugh. (Applause) RUSH LIMBAUGH: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you ever so much. Thank you. Thank you. I'm--thank you, thank you very much for coming, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to another exciting installment of RUSH LIMBAUGH, the television show. Here we are called the epitome of positive. I am full of love for America. It is a tough love. We tell the hard truth here, and sometimes you're going to have to have the courage to face and believe the truth, especially tonight. The--or today, whenever you see the program. As we tape, it's dark, which is why I say--not in here, of course, because you can see me. But it's dark outside and so... (Laughter) LIMBAUGH: ...we're going to--we're going to get into the death of Vince Foster tonight. And note that I did not say the suicide of Vince Foster. LIMBAUGH: I never did believe that Vince Foster's suicide was as clean, as simple as it was reported last July. Just as I never believed that Ross Perot spontaneously decided one night in February to run for president without telling anybody or even thinking of it himself first. Christopher Ruddy of the New York Post, a courageous investigative reporter, has single-handedly been looking into the death of Vince Foster and has uncovered some of the most amazing information that's being ignored by everybody else in the mainstream media. But we're going to talk to him after this break, and find out exactly what he's discovered. And when you hear this, you're going to be as curious as anybody else should be about Vince Foster and his death and what really may be behind it. So don't go away because Chris Ruddy coming up on the phone right after this. (Theme music and applause) (Announcements) (Theme music and applause) LIMBAUGH: There we go. Welcome back. OK, let's--let's just get straight into this, ladies and gentlemen. Vince Foster was a reputed--not reputed, was thought to have committed suicide on the 20th of July last year. What we were told at the moment and in the days that immediately followed the--the death; the president said, This is a mystery. Nobody knows what possibly could have been wrong here. He was the--full of vitality, full of life.' Then a couple days later, people said, No, he wasn't. He was all screwed up. He was seeing a psychiatrist, he was going out and getting medication.' We may never know more than what we do now. The president said he didn't talk to him. He didn't have any idea what was going on. Then it was learned that the president did talk to him. Somebody remembered that, yeah, the president talked to him. They remem--you will remember next that the--the blame began to go around, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page was what most people blamed for Foster's suicide. They were so mean there at that paper. How dare they criticize this great man from Little Rock. And then the press in Washington said, You know, maybe we are getting too mean. Maybe we are being a little bit too hard-hitting on these people. Maybe we should back off a little bit.' We were also told that there was no note. We were told that the park police were given access to his office. No mention that documents referring to the Whitewater Development Corporation were removed and we were not told the role of Bernard Nussbaum in all of this. As time went on, we later learned that Nussbarm--Nussbaum did go into Foster's office, and within two hours after the discovery of his body, had cleared out some files that nobody knew existed until five months later. During the period of time from July to December, basically it was assumed that Foster committed suicide and nobody could figure out why and, oh, wasn't it a terrible thing? Last week Christopher Ruddy, on the 27th of January, began what has become a series of reports on the Vince Foster suicide. (Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Doubts Raised Over Foster's Suicide'") LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) There you see that first story. Doubts raised over Foster's suicide.' And a number of discoveries were unearthed by Mr. Ruddy that nobody had reported previous to his story. For example, the--the position of his body. It was--it was as though he was laid out perfectly in a coffin with his hands at his side. The gun--and this is an exact replica of the gun--was found in his hand just like this at this side, laying down just like this. This after he shot himself in the mouth. (Visual; New York Post sketch describes position of Foster's body) LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) And there was barely a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. There were no forensics tests done on the gun, the bullet wasn't found. None of this. All of it unearthed by Chris Ruddy who we have on the phone. Chris, welcome to the program. What got you started with all this? How--how did it come to be that you decided to investigate this? (Photo of Christopher Ruddy) Mr. CHRISTOPHER RUDDY (Investigative Reporter, The New York Post): Well, about a month ago a friend of mine down in Washington said, You know, you should take a look at the--at the Vince Foster case, because he--this person in Washington was concerned that he was still holding the gun.' And there were some small press reports that mentioned he still had the gun in hand--in his hand which is unusual. It's rare that a suicide victim would have the gun. LIMBAUGH: Unusual. Isn't it impossible? I mean, I've got the gun--I mean, I--I don't want to actually act out what happened here but if I were to take this gun and put it in my mouth and pull the trigger, I doubt that it would stay in my hand and that I would still be conscious enough to lay down perfectly and put the gun at my side and then lay down and die so that I could be discovered having committed suicide. That's--that seems impossible. Mr. RUDDY: Well, no, there is rare instances where it would occur. But it's highly unusual and would lead one to believe that foul play did take place. The--the way the park police described it happening, it would be--it would have been impossible. So you're correct in--in stating that, if you were to put it in that way--that--the way the park police said the suicide took place. (Footage of the road leading to Fort Marcy; site of Foster death) Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And the way they claim is that Vince Foster was standing on a hillside--a steep incline. So he's standing on it and he took a revolver and he put it in his mouth--a .38-caliber revolver--and he put his thumb in the trigger, they claimed, and he fired the gun; that he fell back in a perfectly repose. The gun then came out of his mouth, with no blood on it, by the way. Usually the barrel of the gun is loaded with blood and you would have seen evidence of it across the shirt. Everyone noted--noticed how clean his shirt was. That he then was able to turn the gun around in his hands so that it fit correctly so that his fingers went around the hand grip because remember they claim that he shot himself with his thumb and that he then put it at his side in a natural repose as one would be ready to fire a gun. And that could not be--could not happen. Pathologist I spoke to--the leading pathologist in the country... (Limbaugh mimics events as described by Ruddy) (Laughter) Mr. RUDDY: ...said it is impossible to have taken place. LIMBAUGH: Now what about the investigation, Chris. The park police-- everybody--a lot of people have been making fun of them and a lot of people have been suggesting that the park police are basically just a bunch of rangers and--and--and guides that--that are really not equipped to conduct a--or trained to conduct a murder investigation. Is that true? Mr. RUDDY: Oh, absolutely. They're known as being the lowest of--or how they say, the lowest on the food chain in Washington in terms of law enforcement. (Laughter) Mr. RUDDY: And they were put in, I believe, for political reasons because they could be controlled. Today I had a report on how they fumbled and bungled the whole investigation. (Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Cops: Foster Gun Was Never Tested") Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) You know, when you approach a suicide, police practice is you treat it as a homicide because you're not going to know until autopsy and forensic reports, which could take weeks to come through, will prove either way; so you have to collect as much evidence as possible, gather all the witnesses. (Visual; New York Post headline reads, "More Questions About Foster's Suicide'") Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And let's face it, this is not the first time somebody's stuck a gun in someone's hand and said it was a suicide when in fact the person had been murdered. LIMBAUGH: What about the gun? There--there are conflicting reports. The White House says that the gun was tested. You had--had a story, which we just put on the screen during your last comments, the gun was not. Was the gun ever tested and checked for ballistics? Did they ever find the bullet? Mr. RUDDY: Since Foster's death, the park police, have claimed that the gun underwent ballistics tests by the DC metropolitan police, who usually handle ballistics. So I called up the ballistics unit at the DC police and the head of it said, I know the gun you're talking about. We never conducted a test on it. We never conducted ballistics.' So I called back park police. They admitted that they lied and they said, We don't--we--we probably didn't conduct ballistics.' LIMBAUGH: Why--now, are you--tough question. Are they lying to protect their incompetence or are they lying because they're afraid of something? Mr. RUDDY: Well, I think they're afraid. I think they're afraid, at the very least, that they totally bungled this case and it's going to be evident when the reports come out that the ballistics test is just one of many things. I mean, any cop would have told you that when you have a scene like this, and you can't find the pullets--the bullet, which they claim they couldn't find, it should have been within feet of Foster. Because they claimed it went out of the back of his head; and the bullet usually slows and falls. They should have used metal detectors. Didn't bother doing that. They should have fingerprinted Foster's car. That's part of the crime scene. They didn't bother doing that. They didn't secure Foster's office. He left in the middle of the work day. There may have been important evidence there. They didn't secure it until 10:00 AM the next morning. We know that at least three White House aides were in there before the park police showed up. And they never found his appointment book for that day. LIMBAUGH: What about suicide note? Mr. RUDDY: Well, they claim that a note found a couple of days afterwards torn into 27 pieces was a suicide note. But it makes no mention of suicide. LIMBAUGH: Was it--was it--was it--in his--ye--no mention--it was in his own handwriting? Mr. RUDDY: Well, this is what they claim. But they haven't released it publicly. LIMBAUGH: There's 28 pages--pieces, right? They've only found 27? Mr. RUDDY: Yes, and they claim... LIMBAUGH: And the 28th page--or the 28th piece is his signature. Is that right? Mr. RUDDY: Well, there--they were trying to claim it was his signature but I think it's obvious--you know, his wife had told him to write down things that were bothering him about 10 days before the suicide--or the alleged suicide. LIMBAUGH: Yeah. Chris, hold your thought right there. We have to take a quick break. When we come back, the latest is that the former FBI director, William Sessions, has sent Chris a written statement which explains some of the trouble the FBI had in gaining access to the investigation. We'll have that and more when we come back. Don't go away. (Applause) (Announcements) (Theme music and applause) LIMBAUGH: And we're back. Thank you all very much. Chris Ruddy of the New York Post, the only investigative journalist in America to look into the death of Vince Foster, is on the phone with us. The park police inept, unqualified. Why wasn't the FBI brought in to investigate this? Mr. RUDDY: Well, everybody agrees that--top law enforcement officials agree that they should have been, they have the best forensics unit. They have experience in homicide; the park police does not. I asked the former director of the FBI, William Sessions, and he responded with a two-page handwritten statement to me. (Photo of William Sessions) LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) Yeah. Let's keep in mind, he was fired the day before Foster was killed. Mr. RUDDY: Well, that's very significant you say that, Rush, because he makes great significance of that in his two-page memo. He even reminds me of that in the question, that he was fired the day before. (Visual; letter from William Sessions to Chris Ruddy) Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And on the day that Foster committed suicide, there was no real director. There was an acting director who had been Sessions' deputy, and who had worked with the White House and the Justice Department to undermine Sessions and to fire him. (Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Ex-Chief: Politics Kept FBI Off Foster Case") Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And so Sessions concludes by saying, quote, "The decision about the investigative role of the FBI in the Foster death was, therefore, compromised from the beginning." LIMBAUGH: Mmm. All right. We have to take another quick break. I wish we had more time to explore that, but I think it speaks for itself. I have some questions that are going to call for your opinion, Chris, when we come back. Don't go away, folks. There's one more segment of this. We'll be right back. (Applause) (Announcements) LIMBAUGH: Welcome back. Christopher Ruddy, New York Post, do you think this was suicide? Mr. RUDDY: Well, when I started this, I didn't believe that it was murder... (Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Doubts Raised Over Foster's Suicide'") Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) ...I was leaning toward suicide. After investigating it, speaking to so many experts, there's so many inconsistencies with this suicide, it would lead one to believe it was not suicide; but indeed foul play was involved and a homicide likely took place. That's my opinion. LIMBAUGH: OK. Mr. RUDDY: But we should know when the reports come out--the autopsy reports. LIMBAUGH: Will we be treated to that information? Mr. RUDDY: Well, the Justice Department came out today and said they're going to try to expedite this now that it has raised interest in the public arena. LIMBAUGH: That's it. How come you're the only guy--where is the mainstream, inside-the-beltway, Washington press corps on this story? Mr. RUDDY: At--asleep at the switch, probably. (Visual; New York Post headline reads, "More Questions About Foster's Suicide'") LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) Why are they asleep at the switch? Do they just--I mean, if this were a Republican president and this had happened, can you imagine, Chris, the re--feeding frenzy that would be going on here? Mr. RUDDY: I couldn't believe that no one had asked very simple questions. What did the crime scene look like? Ask the people that arrived first on the scene. No one had ever done that until I came along seven months--seven months after the death of Vince Foster. I think that's the shocking story. I think you have criticized the establishment media and I think this may be an example of them at work on... LIMBAUGH: What about--it seems to me, as I read your stuff, that this is unraveling real fast. Am I correct in assuming that? Mr. RUDDY: Well, I think that they know they're going to have to come up with the documents... (Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Cops: Foster Gun Was Never Tested") Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) ...the police report and the autopsy. And that's going to either feed more interest, because it will show that what they claimed was not true or didn't happen... documents out. So if they want this to stop, they have to get it out as soon as possible. There's every indication that they're going to move to--to fulfill that promise. LIMBAUGH: Christopher Ruddy of the New York Post, thank you very much for taking time to join us. I've always said, folks, that if you want to get to the bottom of whatever went on in Fornigate, Whitewatergate, you've got to find out what happened to Vince Foster. And thanks to Christopher Ruddy, we're a lot closer to knowing than we would have been otherwise. We'll see you on our next show. Hope you've enjoyed this one. Adios. http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_06_27_atrios_archive.html#108846635328309901
That's a wonderful piece of blogulation, gwaynie, but as Berger's story is corroborated, and the documents he saw were only copies, all of these malicious motivations are rendered irrelevant. I particularly like how his scheme has now metamorphosized, as one of your heroic bloggers put it, into "systematic destruction" of documents -- I guess since they realize that the aburdity of the original premise given the validation of Berger's belief that they were copies, it's time to hatch a new plan. So I guess stage 1 was destruction of the copies -- what's stage 2? A commando raid on the National Archives? Vernon Jordan and Richard Ben Veniste garroting Thomas Kean? Fill me in, and let your imagination soar Like I said, I'll just sit back and wait for the charges to be filed...should be coming any day now, right?
Whatever. There is no way you can spin this, but I am getting a good laugh as your poor intellect makes the lame effort. And no, there won't be charges because the Dems will simply cry foul no matter the evidence.
Gwayne: you know, I've gotten into many debates on here, and when I get that last desperate resort to ad hominem, it means something. . . Kudos, though, for the speculation that the DOJ is too afraid of the big bad democrats to do anything about Berger -- I like that one.
Ad hominem indeed. You are constantly distorting my user name and making statements like "Fill me in, and let your imagination soar ". By the way, here's some more on mediamatters.org Truth Matters The last recession began under Clinton, despite rewrites on the Left. Donald Luskin Media Matters for America is a new website (mediamatters.org) "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation." It's been developed with the zillions of tax-deductible dollars that George Soros and others contributed to the leftist Center for American Progress. It's run by a confessed liar, former conservative author David Brock, who has admitted that he knowingly lied in his book about Anita Hill, and has apologized for his reporting on Bill Clinton's sexual misadventures. So far the work from Media Matters isn't very impressive. But what should we expect when the Left is put in charge of a quest for truth? The first major article posted on the Media Matters website is an attempted exposé of the often-heard conservative claim that the last economic recession began during the Clinton administration — or, in other words, that it was already underway when George W. Bush took office in 2001. The article painstakingly traces the history of this claim through numerous statements by Bush administration officials and conservative commentators, presenting all this as a "successful three-and-a-half year media campaign" that has led to polling results showing "62% of Americans think the recession began under Clinton." The claim that the last recession started under Clinton is absolutely true. To deny this is not only to blame Bush for a problem he didn't cause, but to deprive him of the credit for fixing it with effective policies — which is exactly why the Left is so eager in this case. Here, however, are the facts: The unemployment rate bottomed at 3.8 percent in April 2000, and started deteriorating steadily from there (during the Clinton administration). The fed funds rate — the overnight interest rate administered by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve — peaked at 6.5 percent in 2000, and had to be lowered in an emergency move on January 3, 2001, "in light of further weakening of sales and production" (during the Clinton administration). As the chart below shows, GDP growth fell off a cliff in the third quarter of 2000 (during the Clinton administration). Despite the shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, growth started to revive in the fourth quarter of 2001 (during the Bush administration). The one and only piece of evidence offered by Media Matters that’s to the contrary is that fact that the National Bureau of Economic Research set the beginning of the last recession at March 2001 — two months into the Bush administration. Check that date on the chart above: This well-respected economic research group set the beginning of the recession after GDP growth had already crashed from almost 5 percent to near zero. But according to Media Matters, this single authority determines truth, and everyone else is a liar. The article declares that "if NBER says the recession began in March 2001, the recession began in March 2001." The reality is that NBER is just like any other group of economists, struggling with partial and imperfect information to characterize phenomena that don't have any hard-and-fast definitions. Since NBER set the March 2001 recession start date in November 2001, there have been important negative revisions to key data. Most important, back then GDP growth for the third quarter of 2000 was reported at 1.3 percent — but now it's been revised all the way down to a negative 0.5 percent. NBER had no way of knowing that then. In fact, NBER has been on the verge of changing the recession’s start date for this very reason. According to the Washington Post earlier this year, NBER President Martin Feldstein said, "It is clear that the revised data have made our original March date for the start of the recession much too late," but he did not offer a different date. "We are still waiting for additional monthly data before making a final judgment," said Feldstein, a Harvard University economist. "Until we have the additional data, we cannot make a decision." Media Matters chooses not to mention this fact. Liberals have never felt constrained by NBER's "official" dates. For example, last year in a New York Times Magazine article, ultra-leftist economist Paul Krugman cited dates for the economic expansion during the Reagan administration that not only didn't correspond to NBER's dates, but didn't even correspond to Ronald Reagan's years in the White House! The only virtue of Krugman's unofficial dates is that they made Reagan's economic performance look worse (natch). Of course, liberals are not at all happy with NBER's judgment that the recession that began in March 2001 ended only eight months later, in November 2001. Krugman called it "a controversial decision," and has since stated that the economy is, in fact, "still depressed." John Kerry can't even bring himself to admit that the recession has ended, even though Media Matters might lecture him that "if NBER says the recession ended in November 2001, the recession ended in November 2001." Instead, Kerry refers in speeches to November 2001 as the date when "the recession supposedly ended." The great thing about economics, though, is that reality speaks louder than the words from the left. Sixty-two percent of the American public knows that the recession began under Clinton — they were there and they experienced it. Now, with GDP growth running stronger than in any twelve-month period under Clinton, the American public knows that an expansion is well underway. Against that, nothing that Media Matters for America says matters. *********************************************** and about Soros: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-06-01-soros-cover_x.htm George Soros putting his fortune behind a new cause: Ousting Bush By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY NEW YORK — George Soros bet against Polish communism when Solidarity was still underground and against Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic when he was one of the most feared men in Europe. He bet against the dollar and made "the killing of a lifetime." Then he bet against the pound and made a bigger one. George Soros addresses the 2004 graduating class of the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Julie Jacobson, AP Now Soros, a storied financial and political speculator, says another of his bets is about to pay off: more than $15 million against President Bush. The Hungarian-born billionaire, who had vowed to spend more if necessary to deny the president re-election, says he's contributed enough to achieve his goal. "There probably will be some further contributions, but I don't expect any substantial increase," he says in an interview. "Large numbers of people are beginning to see the Bush administration in the same light as I do. Frankly, I don't think I'll need to do a lot more. ... I now take the defeat of Bush more or less for granted." Soros is used to winning — in finance (he's worth about $7 billion) and in politics. He did more than any other private individual to support the emergence of democracy in Eastern Europe and has bankrolled liberal causes around the world. But he hasn't always been confident of victory over Bush, which six months ago he was calling "the central project of my life for the next year." Asked by The Washington Post whether he would trade his fortune to beat Bush, he replied, "If someone guaranteed it." When Republicans howled, Soros warned that the more they bashed him the more he was likely to give. But the prospect of victory — or at least the perception — seems to have changed that. Now that he's predicting success, Soros even denies strong personal feelings about a president he had called "a warmonger." "I don't have a vendetta," he says. "He's a figurehead and was elected as a public face. He fills a role. It's the forces behind him that I consider to be sinister," including Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. However sincere, Soros' new tack also is politically expedient. His zeal had become a liability. By rousing conservative GOP donors, he says, "I probably raised more money for Bush than against him." Traditionally, the GOP has been seen as the party of big money and fat cats. But some Republicans have Soros envy. "He's convinced Republicans and conservatives to mimic him and go after big donors of their own," says Grover Norquist, a leading conservative thinker in Washington. It's not just Republicans and conservatives. Soros says he has concluded that very large personal contributions undercut broad popular support for a cause; the little guy is wary of the big money. Anyway, in a $1 billion campaign, even $15 million is a drop in the bucket. The market gets saturated. How many more TV spots are available in October? How many direct-mail appeals can the voters read? The presidency has become so expensive that even George Soros can't buy it. Soros, who loves to play chess and tennis, may have gotten into Republicans' heads — one in particular. Massachusetts Rep. Marty Meehan, a Democratic sponsor of the campaign-finance reform law that passed in 2002, met Bush in the receiving line at a White House holiday party last December. He reminded Bush that the Supreme Court was about to rule on the law's constitutionality. First, Bush wanted to know how Meehan thought the court would rule. Then he asked, "Is it gonna be OK for George Soros to do what he's doing?" The president's concern is understandable. Soros has been called the only man with his own foreign policy and the ability to implement it. The joke goes that he merely does what the government would do if it had the money. Self-made statesman At 73, Soros is the nation's 28th-richest person, according to Forbes magazine. Much of this fortune was made in currency speculation, notably a bet in 1992 that the British pound was overvalued. When the British government finally caved in and devalued the currency, Soros made about $1 billion. "All in day's work," he says. His childhood in Hungary was shaped by oppressors: the Nazis, whom his Jewish family survived partly by posing as Christian, and the Communists, whom he fled in 1947 and moved to London. Nine years later he moved to New York, where he made his fortune. Most rich men want to become richer. Soros wanted to become, in his words, "the conscience of the world." So he embarked on a philanthropic career in which he has, so far, given away almost $5 billion to promote what he calls "open society" around the world. Like Soros the financier, Soros the philanthropist invested long sums on short notice. He paid for construction of a municipal water filtration system in besieged Sarajevo; gave the fledgling government of Macedonia a $25 million loan; and sent hundreds of Xerox machines into Hungary, where photocopying was controlled by the government. He helped underwrite democratic movements in, among other places, Czechoslovakia (1989), Slovakia (1998), Serbia (2000) and the former Soviet republic of Georgia (2003). He was far less involved in U.S. politics. His biographer, Michael T. Kaufman, suspects that although Soros didn't mind controversy abroad, he didn't want to be a lightning rod back home. Ask Soros why he jumped into the 2004 campaign, and he says one word, "Iraq," and waits for the next question. In a book he wrote last year, The Bubble of American Supremacy, Soros predicted a Vietnam-like quagmire in Iraq that would sour voters on Bush. "As a market participant, I try to anticipate cycles of boom and bust," he says. "Look at what I wrote about Iraq. It's uncanny." Once, Kaufman says, he asked Soros whether he really was a smarter investor than everyone else. "He said, 'No, what I am is more critical. I catch my own mistakes quicker.' That's what must gall him about Bush. When he's asked what mistakes he's made, he can't name any." What a billionaire wants Soros spends more on politics than on himself. Although his family has many homes, including an apartment, a beach house and a country house in the New York area, Soros is no Donald Trump. He has neither jet nor yacht, neither art collection nor retinue. SOROS' PHILANTHROPY Some of George Soros' philanthropic contributions: $115 million after the fall of the Soviet Union to support Russian science. About $50 million went for stipends to scientists who had lost government support; the aim was to reduce the temptation to use their talents for destructive purposes. $250 million in 2001 to found and endow Central European University; its main campus is in Budapest, Hungary. $100 million to free education in the former Soviet Union from Marxist-Leninist dogma by buying new textbooks, training teachers and operating libraries. $12 million to promote high school debate programs in the USA (1998-present). $30 million to divide large public high schools in New York City into smaller, more manageable schools. $13 million (with an additional $37 million commitment) to finance affordable housing and building projects for poor South Africans, most of whom previously lived in shantytowns. $110 million over the past decade to Step by Step, an early childhood development program in 29 countries. $200 million to promote peace, tolerance, reconciliation and democracy in southeastern Europe and to strengthen the rule of law and independent news media in that region. $50 million in 1992 for humanitarian aid to the besieged Bosnian city of Sarajevo, including construction of a municipal water-filtration system and the restoration of electric power to the city's hospitals. $50 million to the Emma Lazarus Fund to combat unfair treatment of, and discrimination against, legal immigrants in the USA (1996-2000). $125 million to the After School Corporation for after-school programs (1997-present). Nor is he after the kind of access that political contributions usually buy. "He doesn't need to make a contribution to talk to a president," says Anthony Corrado, an expert on campaign finance at Colby College in Maine. People fear Soros because they don't understand his motives, says Leon Botstein, president of Bard College and a longtime Soros adviser. "The average person asks, 'What's in it for him?' " Botstein says. "They cannot imagine that if they were that rich, they would be that generous." Soros understands the suspicion. "Why should a rich guy give money without ulterior motives?" he says. In fact, he adds, "I have ulterior motives, but they are clear: I want a hearing for my views. ... I want a referendum on the Bush doctrine" in foreign affairs. But to go from supporting democracy in general to Democrats in particular, he had to reverse course on another issue. Soros spent $18 million to support campaign-finance reform. That movement culminated in the McCain-Feingold bill of 2002, which banned from direct campaign use the large, unregulated contributions known as "soft money." But Soros says he always suspected that any campaign-finance changes would have "loopholes" because money and power are elemental forces. After the United States invaded Iraq, he commissioned studies on what he could do to beat Bush. He was told it still was possible for unions, companies and wealthy individuals to pump soft money into the presidential campaign through groups called "527s," named for the section of the tax code that regulates them. They could work against Bush but could not coordinate activities directly with the political parties. Soros believed 527s could help balance the GOP's advantage in fundraising. Otherwise, the Democrats faced a rerun of 2000, when an impoverished Gore campaign had to lie low all spring while the better-financed Bush forces built up a lead. Last summer Soros invited some leaders of several liberal 527 groups to his house on Long Island to outline their plans. Since then he has given or pledged $10 million to America Coming Together, $2.6 million to the MoveOn.org Voter Fund and $3 million to the Center for American Progress, a think tank founded by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. All of them working against Bush, though not directly with the Democratic Party. Where others saw a GOP runaway, Soros saw a horse race. "I stood up and took a stance at a time when very few people did," he says. "I was a kind of rallying cry." David Magleby, a Brigham Young University expert on groups that try to influence elections, agrees. "Soros breathed life and funds into what has become a well-developed array of new groups tailor-made to operate under the new rules," he says. And Soros did it openly, almost defiantly. "He was a beacon for the old Democratic soft money," Magleby says. "Soros put the new groups in business. He set up the storefront." Spreading the message Soros has delivered his message on campuses across the nation, including Duke, Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins and Columbia, where last month he charged that between the Sept. 11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq, Americans turned from "victims into perpetrators." The war on terror, he said, has claimed more innocent victims than the terror attacks themselves. Some Republicans see Soros as the perfect foil: a foreign-accented currency speculator, answerable only to himself, who believes in the right to die, liberalized drug laws and gun control and more cooperation with the United Nations. At first Soros played into their hands. His distaste for Bush and his admittedly "rabid" opposition to the Iraq war led Fortune to dub him "the world's angriest billionaire." And his professed willingness to become poor to get rid of Bush made him sound like a zealot. "That I want to live down," he now says. "It was a trick question and a trick answer." He also has alienated his former partners in campaign-finance reform. "George Soros started out as part of the solution, and he's ended up as part of the problem," says Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, an advocacy group for campaign reform to which Soros once contributed. He says that whatever Soros' intentions, he has helped start "a soft-money arms race." Soros may become a campaign issue even if he makes no more contributions. A New York Post editorial termed his Columbia speech "a noxious diatribe" that was "prominently featured on the Al-Jazeera Web site." Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly last month described him as "a left-wing extremist" and promised, "We're going to stay on Soros. ... People will know about this guy before the election." Soros says he's not intimidated: "There's a streak in me — the more you beat up on me, the more determined I am to continue." It's unclear whether a man who helped free millions from communism would be a political liability to John Kerry. But, though Soros and Kerry were both vacationing in Sun Valley, Idaho, in March, they spoke only on the phone. They did not meet, Soros says, "because of how it would be interpreted." *********************************************** Yep, real objective source there.
I see, so 10 years ago Limbaugh interviewed a reporter and read a fax. Yes, I guess that seals it, Vince Foster has been an integral part of his shows. Now I can see why he mentions it in passing - it gets you libos so wound up.
You said this originally... Nice change from "ever giving serious play" to "integral part of his shows."
Sam, how could you let this guy call you Osama Bin Fisher? For what, for calling him gwaynie? Shouldn't the appropriate response be sammy? I'm not going to take somebody seriously who tries to associate you with a terrorist for that.
Well there's an easy way to uh...ignore...it like I usually do, but I decided to humor him in this instance just for fun. Full disclosure: I once did call him Gweenie, and I think Gweiner dog, and I think maybe even Sir Gwayne and the Green Knight once, so I guess that set him off. Just add him to the fan club that likes to follow me around I guess....
I should have said "that every time I had listened to him." As far as moving the goal posts, just a trick I learned from the libos.
