Looks like the right wing scandal-mongers are looking to take maximum advantage of the Sandy Berger classified documents affair by feigning outrage and demanding a witch hunt. Not surprising, really: they're losing, they're scared, and they're falling back on something that seemed to work well for them in the 1990's. Of course, part of what let the right wing scandal fever of the 90's work was several serious missteps by the Clinton administration, who naively thought their antagonists were dealing from a position of good faith. I doubt very much the Kerry/Edwards campaign will make the same mistake, and allow a bogus politically-motivated "investigation" into a non-existent crime to proceed.

Furthermore, it's kind of tough to claim there's some sort of coverup when your party controls all three branches of government.

The bottom line, though, is this: what Sandy Berger is alleged to have done (all wingnut wishful thinking aside) is serious from a security standpoint, but pretty minor in terms of actual ramifications on anything outside the security issue itself. Berger inadvertently took notes regarding classified documents home, when he shouldn't have. Apparently, none of the material was disseminated beyond that point. More importantly, nothing he did would have affected the judgement of the 9/11 Commission in its final report (in fact, the Commission knew about the missing documents and didn't find them important), despite the claims of drooling wingnuts desperate to bring down Kerry and defend their incompetent president that there must be a scandal here.

Compare such an understandable mistake as Berger's with the known fact that someone high in the Bush administration deliberately disseminated highly classified information to the media regarding a CIA operative in order to score political points, and the additional fact that someone in or associated with the administration gave cryptographic intelligence (among our most closely guarded secrets) to the uncleared Ahmed Chalabi, who turned around and gave the material to Iran.

With such a comparison, it seems clear who is more trustworthy when it comes to classified material. It is also clear from the false outrage mustered by wingnuts over this issue, and the fact that the outrage has been strangely lacking from the same characters over much more serious breaches by the Bush administration, that political advantage, not what's best for the country, is the driving force at work. As usual, the right wing loons are playing politics with the national security of the United States.

It's also telling where the leak about the Sandy Berger investigation (which is unlikely to lead to any charges) probably came from. The conveniently-timed leak was promoted by the Bush campaign in multiple calls to news organizations, and mysterious anonymous sources have been claiming Berger was seen stuffing (presumably classified) material into his jacket and socks at the classified reading room where the breach supposedly occurred--a charge vehemently denied by every non-anonymous person queried on the matter.

The Bush campaign is desperate. They've been running a negative, dirty tricks campaign against Kerry from day one, and it hasn't been working. They have no record to run on, so their only option is to get dirtier. Which leads us to the Berger leak.

It's not surprising that the scum-of-the-earth veterans from the politically-motivated Clinton investigations are trying to hype this issue into a conspiracy and a scandal. I say let them come. This time, we're ready.

Looks like Schwarzenegger is reaching for the politics of Saturday Night Live in his efforts to score partisan points:

"If they don't have the guts to come up here in front of you and say, 'I don't want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers ... if they don't have the guts, I call them girlie men," Schwarzenegger said to the cheering crowd at a mall food court in Ontario.

Cute. All joking aside, however, there is significant evidence that Schwarzenegger's idea of the behavior of a "real man" seems to include sexually assaulting women. To say nothing, of course, of slashing education funding and lying about the very issue that brought this comment on.

So given a choice between being a "Girlie-Mon Democrat" and a "Chicken-Hawk Republican", I'll choose the former. Every time.

Bring it on, Gropenator.