Aggravated Berglery

Is this how Sandy Berger conducted himself while national security adviser under Bill Clinton? Stuffing highly classified documents in his jacket and pants and socks and spiriting them out of the office - and then "losing" some of them?

These things he did in preparation for testimony to the Sept. 11 commission.

At worst, Berger's actions constitute crimes and possible attempts to hide or destroy classified documents. At best, they reveal a former national security adviser - who served in the crucial run-up to 2001 - who is sloppy, careless and untrustworthy with our national security.

In either case, this is an unmitigated scandal.

Did the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and other liberal media outlets not understand the gravity of all this? That a former national security adviser has admitted pilfering classified documents from the National Archives? Why in the world did they bury this news Tuesday - while having played up any sniff of scandal from the Bush administration or the war on terror?

Mr. Berger needs whatever security clearance he has stripped from him immediately and permanently. He needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And even the liberal news media, which reflexively protects anything stamped "Clinton administration" on it, must present this outrage for what it is: an unprecedented scandal. Never in the history of the republic has a national security adviser been so obviously guilty of breaching security - and stealing from the American people. And in wartime!

Besides all that, you have to wonder what this "Berglery" was intended to cover up. Was there even more incompetence and sloth in the Clinton administration than has already been revealed? Incompetence and sloth that, just maybe, directly contributed to the Clinton administration's gross inability to nip terrorism in the bud and possibly prevent Sept. 11?

Add to all this the fact that we believe Mr. Berger to be an unrepentant liar. We do not, for one minute, believe his decision to stuff his jacket, pants and socks with classified material to be, as he and his lawyer meekly claim, "inadvertent." As much as we wonder about the Clinton administration's fumbling of the terrorist threat in the years leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, we do not believe Mr. Berger is as much of a nincompoop as he would now have us believe.

Not at all. In contrast, we believe Mr. Berger believes the rest of us to be bigger fools than he.

We believe this was calculated - and may even have been a coherent, purposeful attempt to obstruct the investigation of the Sept. 11 commission. That, too, must be investigated.

Even for a Clinton administration marked by missing documents - remember the Rose law firm files? - contempt of court and obstructing justice (both of which President Clinton himself performed), the Berger scandal is outrageous. Here's a former national security adviser stealing national security documents at a time when the country is doing its level best to prevent another Sept. 11.

Whose side is this guy on?