The Dish

Here’s a strange discrepancy in the NYT’s own account of Sandy Berger’s illegal purloining of classified material from government archives. Here’s one version:

Republicans accused him on Tuesday of stashing the material in his clothing, but Mr. Breuer called that accusation “ridiculous” and politically inspired. He said the documents’ removal was accidental.

Then later on in the piece, we read:

Mr. Breuer, the lawyer, said Mr. Berger inadvertently put three or four versions of the report on the plots in a leather portfolio he had with him. “He had lots of papers, and the memos got caught up in the portfolio,” he said. “It was an accident.”
Mr. Berger also put in his jacket and pants pockets handwritten notes that he had made during his review of the documents, Mr. Breuer said.

So it’s “ridiculous” to assert that he stuffed notes and copies of documents in his clothing, and yet he stashed them in his pants pockets and jacket. Is the critical issue here whether he stuffed them down his underpants or socks? If so, I can’t wait for the fruits of the loom, I mean, inquiry.

WHY? The salient question – and we have yet to have an even faintly plausible answer – is why? What was the purpose of stashing document copies that were allegedly available elsewhere? How could such a thing be “inadvertent”? Why is such an accomplished Washington player unable to come up with a reasonable explanation for such bizarre behavior? The Washington Post reports this morning that

A government official with knowledge of the probe said Berger removed from archives files all five or six drafts of a critique of the government’s response to the millennium terrorism threat, which he said was classified “codeword,” the government’s highest level of document security.

All the drafts? And now they’re missing? Doesn’t that sound like trying to cover your back? And yet the 9/11 Commission has not complained that it lacked any important documents; and the originals are still in the archives. I still don’t get it. My best bet is that Berger was engaging in advance damage control – saving the drafts to help concoct a better defense of his tenure. If so, it’s classic Clinton era sleaze – not exactly terrible but cheesy subordination of national security for partisan political advantage. But at times like this, I sure am glad we have the blogosphere. Can you imagine the mainstream press really pursuing this story alone? Meanwhile, Clinton thinks the possible leaking of classified information is just hilarious. About as hilarious as his anti-terror policy.

FREE THE VIBRATORS: The woman charged in Texas for selling vibrators has now had the charges dropped. One of her crimes was not merely selling the sex toy, but explaining how to use it:

Texas law allows for the sale of sexual toys as long as they are billed as novelties. But when a person markets the items in a direct manner that shows how they are used in sex, it is considered criminal obscenity.

And there you have America’s screwed-up attitude toward sex summed up in two sentences.

I was sorry to hear that Paul Foot, one of Britain’s most dogged journalists, died of a heart attack last Saturday. The Telegraph obit does him justice. His Marxist views were silly when they weren’t fueled with anger and hatred, but he had a keen nose for actual injustice and often sniffed it out. I liked this testament: “There are more people walking the streets of Britain who have been freed from prison by Paul Foot than by any other person.” They were all innocent, of course. And few journalists can claim to have done such tangible good in their lives.

TOWARD CLARITY ON IRAN: Amir Taheri agrees with the Dish that the subject should be front and center in the campaign.

SOMERBY ON WILSON: Bob Somerby’s a major hater of this blog, but he’s often got good things to say and a sometimes extraordinary diligence in rooting out the truth. He’s no fan of Bush’s, to say the least, but he can see through the Joe Wilson carapace of cant:

Let’s compare two important statements-Bush’s famous 16 words, and Wilson’s amazing new admission:

BUSH: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

WILSON: I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

Finally! This is what we’ve always told you – Wilson had no way of knowing if the 16-word statement was right or wrong. He had no way to debunk it! But throughout his thrilling and best-selling book, he calls this statement a “lie-lie-lie-lie,” over and over and over again. But then, grinding overstatement like that has been the problem with Wilson all along (as the three senators correctly note). And now, alas, Dems will start to pay a price for investing so much in his presentations.

Well, they would if the media were willing to debunk the fraud they so ably hyped. But they won’t, will they?

A strangely moving account of living with no sense of smell. Imagine being susceptible to drinking perfume, or not noticing a gas leak, or having no olefactory sexual instincts. It does have some advantages though:

I will have to soldier on, and draw what comfort I can from a recent exchange with an ex-boyfriend who, as we reminisced about our relationship said wistfully, “You were the best girlfriend in the world. You let me bring curry home from the pub every night and I could fart as much as I liked.” I’m putting it in my next personal ad.

Here’s another site exploring a world without scent. The beagle is incredulous, of course.

MORE MOORE: He doctors a date and misrepresents a newspaper headline.

ON OHIO: Another reader weighs in:

The blog seems to have it partially wrong while the reader letter is partially right. Bush is trying to cut in Kerry’s Catholic base around Cleveland. The problem is that he risks further alienating liberal and moderate Republicans as well as Independents in the Cleveland suburbs. Running an abortion ad is high stakes poker because most campaigns view the risk as greater than the reward. Also the conventional wisdom says that the loser tends to be the one who brings it up. Bush is obviously convinced that his economic message isn’t viable in the area and has therefore resorted to his nuclear daisy-cutter. This is about fear not opportunity. Bush has plenty of wedge issues working against Kerry among traditional Catholics without dropping the a-word.
Another thing to consider is the choice of the medium. 60 Minutes? Why would you broadcast this message to such a wide audience? Granted the audience does tend to skew older, but why run the risk when you can target the message more precisely to a more narror audience and cheaper as well?
Finally the blog does contain one piece of wisdom explaining why. “Because according to Voinovich, the Bush administration has not been doing enough to stop Ohio from “bleeding jobs.” That’s a fairly damning source. Even if the recovery numbers are there, Voinovich clearly doesn’t want to be on the wrong side of the perception.

It’s obviously knife-edge close in Ohio. And that cannot be too encouraging for an incumbent.

Anti-gay crusaders, Brownback and Santorum, will now be given speaking slots at the GOP Convention. More honest. Prime-time? We don’t know yet.

They are still getting the uranium-Africa SOTU reference wrong. After a while, it begins to look pathological.

Kevin Phillips believes they’re the key to a possible Kerry victory. Money quote:

The alternative–at once bolder and riskier, but with a larger potential electorate–involves targeting the ordinary Republicans who rejected at least one generation of Bushes to back Perot or McCain. These voters–not a few thousand elites but millions of the rank and file–are concentrated in the middle-class precincts of swing states like Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado and the Pacific Coast.

I can’t say I think Phillips’ proposal of economic populism for a Kerry candidacy would work. But his analysis of Bush’s weakness strikes me as sound.

More than half of Brits believe the BBC doesn’t provide value for money. A “significant minority” wants to see the television tax that finances it abolished. Oh, please.

Even the loyal Democrat can’t find an explanation for Sandy Berger’s shenanigans. But he still thinks the story is a function of Republican dirty tricks.

I’m gob-smacked, as the Brits say, by the news that Sandy Berger stole documents relating to the Clinton administration’s record on terrorism and has apparently lost some critical documents. It seems to me that Berger has admitted to intentionally lifting key documents, and keeping them from the purview of the 9/11 Commission. Berger ascribes this to “sloppiness.” How can stuffing papers down your pants be a function of “sloppiness’? It’s a function of someone doing something he knows he shouldn’t. It’s theft. But what was his motive? Are the Clinton people that scared of people discovering their negligence with regard to al Qaeda? Or is there something else at play? Right now, I have far more questions than answers. But this strikes me as a huge deal. Berger’s actions seem designed to undermine a vital part of the job of the 9/11 Commission. He should be prosecuted aggressively; and the real reasons for his subterfuge need to be flushed out.

Richard Cohen pens a persuasive column about the Tony Hendra incest accusation, and the New York Times’ decision to report on it. I still feel conflicted about this, but side with Coehn and Okrent against Keller. My own take is here.