Talk:Sandy Berger

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Sandy Berger article.
This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Article policies
This page is about an active politician who is running for office, is in office and campaigning for re-election, or is involved in some political conflict or controversy.

Because of this, this article is at risk of biased editing, talk-page trolling, and simple vandalism.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Portal:Biography
 Biography Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ]
(If you rated the article, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
This article is supported by the Politics and government work group.

Some consideration should be lent toward the scope of this article.

If questions regarding the timing of the publicity of the investigation are valid, then it is also valid to point out opposition to the contemptable attempt to glaze over the deed itself.

Suggesting that the leak of information about the investigation was deliberately timed for political reasons does not inherently "attempt to glaze over the deed itself." It is entirely possible for both Sandy Berger to be an evil spy and for the leak of information about the investigation to have been politically motivated. Bryan 00:05, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We agree this is a legal matter, subject to legal evaluation, which is still in progress. I am not sure if your reference to contemptible applies to me, to the action, Sandy Berger or what? How can you possibly say that something which is under investigation has property X? Actions occur in contexts, I think you agree, and you have not considered the context. CSTAR 19:00, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

But in any case, it's acceptable for now...

"contemptible" applies to 'attempt[s] to glaze over the deed itself'. Not to individuals discussing the matter here.

We all know why a person answers questions about A with questions about B. From what I have heard of Berger's admissions, Berger broke the law. I do not believe Berger is an 'evil spy'. I do not doubt that the timing was 'politically motivated'. I do not see the latter as an answer to questions about the former.

This is indeed a legal matter. Berger admitted to actions that are against the law. That is absolutely true. Whether the man is convicted or punished for his crime is another matter which I've not raised in the article.

I agree that his guilt or innocence in this matter is not relevant to the issue of whether the leak about the investigation is politically motivated, that's exactly why I've been trying to ensure that the wording in the article doesn't present those as an either/or proposition. (oh, I don't think he's an "evil spy" either, and I'm not suggesting anyone here does - I was just using hyperbole for rhetorical purposes, my bad. :) Bryan 23:51, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK there seems to be a lot of discussion ;) trying to settle on some satisfactory account of events. I'll be be optimistic and see if there is some possibility of dialogue.

Previous editor argues: There is no reason to remove factual information from article

  • OK, there are lots of facts not mentioned in the article. Indeed there are an infinite number of facts. I'll kindly interpret those remarks to mean factual and relevant; that's fair enough, since relevant is mentioned previously. (I don't mean kind interpretation to mean condescension. I'm using as a name for a principle of rhetoric, to concede the maximal meaningful context to the interlocutor)
  • Obviously it is a fact; if Berger removed an item, then that item had to be in some way physically attached to his person as Berger left the room. This follows from almost reasonable account of the laws of mechanics. However, why is the fact relevant any more than other true (and derivable) facts about Berger and the documents at that moment.

Anyway I would like to encourage reasonable dialogue on this, even though we may be miles apart on some of the issues.CSTAR 18:58, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)



Contents

[edit] Statements by "Some"

"Some suggested that Berger's removal of the documents constituted theft and moreover had serious national security implications. Also, some have voiced suspicion about the timing of the leak of the investigation, suggesting it might have been intended to distract attention from the release of the 9/11 Commission report later that week and the Democratic National Convention the following week."

Can we have quotes on these "suggestions" by "some"? At least links to one article that makes these suggestions and suspicions, rather than the ad hoc and intellectually fallible use of "some"?

--Xinoph 22:27, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Well, as luck would have it, an op-ed in today's (March 30, 2005) edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution written by Bob Barr makes exactly such accusations (in addition to accusing Pres. Bush of refusing to prosecute Berger for fear that bringing up the issue will resurrect questions about Rice's handling of pre-9/11 intelligence). --Delirium 04:47, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Article appears completely factual NPOV is uncalled for. If Berger deserves defense for the crime he's already pled guilty to that defense should be added as long as it's also factual. If something in the article is wrong that should be discussed hee and corrected/proven in the article - Honest Abe 13 Aug 05

  • Some of the things you posted directly contradict statements in the article you listed. Berger took no original papers, only copies. Please stop posting unbacked partisan rhetoric. Trilemma 01:17, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Joel Hillman statement of no notes in the margin

Hillman said: "...the five iterations of the anti-terror "after-action" report at issue in the case were printed out from a hard drive at the Archives and have no notations at all." This is insufficient information because past statements made by administration officials and complicit sycophants often argued minutia. (What the meaning of "is" is, or "that legal rule does not apply because there is no legal ruling authority.") Were the destroyed documents printed out just for Berger's use - or were they pre-existing documents that others had access to? If so, did others add contemporaneous comments to them, or not? How can we be sure? Were the copies, to which Hillman referred, made for the archive from an electronic source file, or were they original copies made for an NSA meeting and handed out to partricipants at that meeting who may have added comments.

Occam's razor says stealing documents by putting them in one's underwear - when a briefcase is available (which he admits to having), but bears the potential of a casual search - indicates a motive of secrecy. Removing multiple copies of the same document in such a manner by the same logic indicates a need to cover up some damaging content that is either in all of them or was added after they were printed out.

Corollary motives could be argued: Berger did not know the memos he stole out of the archives and destroyed were copies, so the destruction may have been an incorrect assumption that their destruction erased their ability to be examined. Or Berger knew they were copies, so stole them in such a covert manner, in order to have access to them for future reference. WmLambert 14:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC-5)

Berger put no documents in his underwear, only in his pockets. Please don't post unbacked partisan rhetoric. JamieMcCarthy 13:07, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biographies of Living Persons

I have blanked the section discussing the media response to Mr. Berger's conviction (in particular, the demotion of his significance to Sen. Kerry's campaign in news articles). The section did not have high-quality references (in fact it had no references) and therefore did not conform to the Biographies of living persons standard. I think it would be extremely useful information to this article if it is true, but only if it cites high-quality sources.

This page in a nutshell: Articles about living persons must adhere strictly to NPOV and verifiability policies. Be very firm about high-quality references, particularly about details of personal lives. Unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about living persons should be removed immediately from both the article and the talk page. Responsibility for justifying controversial claims rests firmly on the shoulders of the person making the claim.

--Burzum 06:44, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Previous suspicions of theft

Why is there no mention of the document stolen in September? The external link from the Washington Post states that the staff was suspicious of Berger after the first incident of missing documents. It is only because of these suspicions that they actually set a trap and caught him in October. It seems biased to neglect to mention this fact. It seems more likely that he got away with at least one theft and only caught later.

[edit] COPYVIO

The section "Convicted of mishandling classified terror documents" appears to be a copyright infringement. I have reverted the section to the last clean version on 23:26 7 Sep 2006 (UTC) in accordance with WP:CP.

--Burzum 22:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


The section being disputed clearly falls under Fair-Use, even Wiki's tight policy concerning it. To quote: "Brief attributed quotations of copyrighted text used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea may be used under fair use. Text must be used verbatim: any alterations must be clearly marked as an ellipsis ([...]) or insertion ([added text]) or change of emphasis (emphasis added). All copyrighted text must be attributed."

To detail further, the statements of Prosecutor Hillman (whether drawn from The Wall Street Journal or some other source) are, as a US government official operating in his public capacity, in the Public domain. The few brief statements of opinion from the WSJ are used to illustrate a point, clearly attributed, and the original references are hyperlinked. In addition, much of the remaining text is homegrown wiki material.

Depending on other people's input, it may be reasonable to trim some of the quoted sections in the established text. But reversion to a version a year old that includes factual inaccuracies is not a viable solution, and you would be well advised to build up support before making such drastic changes.

Anonymous Wikipedian 04:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, you may not have noticed, but I spent a couple of hours today cleaning up this page and adding new info and you just reverted everything. If you want to readd what the other person removed, click on "history", find the article as it was before your info was removed and then cut and paste the information back into the article as it now is. Please don't dump all the work I have done today. Thanks! Regards, --Jayzel 04:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Click on page two of the Washington Times article and compare the diff that I have linked above. You will quickly see this has nothing to do with fair use. Cheers.--Burzum 05:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's the removed text. It doesn't look like copyvio to me, either. Could you be more specific, Burzum?Bryan 05:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

You need to look a little more closely. I'll give you one example: click to page two of the Washington Times article. The paragraph starting "Mr. Berger is the second senior Clinton administration..." is copied almost exactly by the COPYVIO section including referring to President Clinton as "Mr. Clinton" (which was the giveaway). After you verify that this is correct please remove the COPYVIO on the talk page below. Cheers.--Burzum 05:27, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I should also mention that you should only compare the first COPYVIO revision with the cited material (since the WP:CP policy clearly notes that future revisions cannot be used). You should compare that version that I linked above (compared to what you cited) to page two of the Washington Times artice starting with "The document theft raised questions about whether Mr. Berger was attempting to cover up the Clinton administration's anti-terrorism policies and actions." Cheers.--Burzum 05:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, so just to ensure I've got this straight. The entirety of the copyvio is the following three sentences:
Mr. Berger is the second senior Clinton administration official to be implicated in mishandling classified documents. Former CIA Director John M. Deutch was caught improperly storing highly classified defense documents on his personal computer in 1999. Mr. Deutch, who agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified documents, was pardoned without explanation by Mr. Clinton in January 2001, before a sentence was imposed.[1]
And so on account of these three sentences, you removed an entire section containing six other unrelated paragraphs and reverted three months' worth of other edits? That's an enormous overreaction. You should have simply removed the three sentences that were the actual copyvio, the rest of this is not a problem. Bryan 06:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
And the two additional sentences
The document theft raised questions about whether Mr. Berger was attempting to cover up the Clinton administration's anti-terrorism policies and actions. The records he took were related to internal assessments of the Clinton administration's handling of the terrorist threat in December 1999 to bomb airports in the United States.
If you have a question on the official Wikipedia policy for Copyright violations feel free to discuss it on the WP:CP Talk page. There are two possible options: 1) revert to the version that had no copyright violations or 2) delete the article and start over again. The policy is certainly clear on this issue. Cheers.--Burzum 06:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Only part of one of those sentences seems to have survived subsequent edits, I've struck it out below. If we were to remove or rewrite those bits and then paste the material below directly back into the article, there wouldn't be a stitch of copyvio remaining anywhere except in the article history. This is the exact same result as option 1), which is obviously acceptable to you since that's what you yourself did with it. This is simply not the big deal you're making it out to be. Bryan 07:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
You cannot cut and paste multiple paragraphs (which was what was done) and then later claim that it wasn't COPYVIO because you altered it a little bit. It would make our work here at Wikipedia a lot easier if that was the case. We could copy entire articles, alter it so that they weren't identical and then delete the original in the history. But that isn't legal. The policy forces deletion of an article if there are no acceptable reversions or reverting back to the last non violating version if it exists because anytime that you start out with copyright infringing material, anything that you build with it is also still a copyright infringement. Cheers.--Burzum 07:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
And by the way, I am not making this into a big deal. I am just following the established policy. If you disagree with the policy feel free to discuss it on the talk page as I have mentioned before. Cheers.--Burzum 07:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't disagree with the policy, I disagree with your interpretation of it. The copied material hasn't just been "altered a little bit", it's all been removed or completely rewritten at this point. The current text is no more "built with" copyright-violating material than any other text that's been written based on information gleaned from an external source. Bryan 10:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

- - - I went ahead and removed the paragraph that Burzum found offensive, not merely for a COPYVIO but a more obvious lack of pertenence to the subject. This is the page on Sandy Berger, not anyone else, and for that reason alone it should have been dropped. The other section was restored. --71.111.74.251 06:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC) (it's really me; I forgot to log in Anonymous Wikipedian 06:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Should Add An Accomplishments Section

I'm beginning to feel that if we have a "Controversies" section, we need some sort of matching "Accomplishements" to match it. Otherwise it really feels like we're not adhering to a NPOV guidelines.

This is, quite frankly, something I see a lot of in wiki-biographies of political figures. There's some neutral stuff at the top about age, position held, wife, kids, resume, etc - and then a "Controversies" about every criticism published about them over the course of their public careers. Cataloging every critique doesn't seem fair. But worse, it's not accurate.

In the present article, I have no idea how good Berger was at his job. I strongly suspect he was neither the best or worst. But given how long the man held his job, I think he had to have had something going for him, right?

I'm not adding anything at the moment; too often a talk page is just an ex-postfacto justification for a massive hack on the database. I'm not doing that. I want to see whether other people see the same thing as I do.

-- Anonymous Wikipedian 06:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course there should be more information about the man. I had planned on looking up some biographical info about him and expanding the article further, but am short on time at the moment. Help yourself, if you have some time. The fact remains, however, that Berger has been involved directly or indirectly in numerous different controversies since 1997. That's not POV, it's just the way things are. --Jayzel 15:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


Every public figure on the political state is, as you say, "involved directly or indirectly in numerous different controversies". That comes with the territory for political jobs. The real question is whether this wikipedia entry is creating a false impression by creating a sort of reverse "highlight reel" of Berger's greatest blunders, without any contraveiling positive information to give a more complete (and neutral) accounting of his entire career.
Mind you, being convicted for mishandling classified terror documents is clearly something that needs to go in this entry. But any attack on his handling of his job - including what he did or did not do regarding the Chinese - needs to be carefully examined to make sure it's not someone with a political axe to grind placing in cherry-picked attacks.
-- Anonymous Wikipedian 18:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Well enough, but the criticism regarding the failure to notify the president about the espionage was big news and wide-spread at the time and even included numerous calls for Berger to resign from his position. I've already supplied Berger's quote as well as a link to a New York Times editorial criticizing Berger. I'll find sources for the calls to resign a bit later today and add that to the article as well. By the way, I am having difficulty finding reliable biographical sources to help expand the article. I'd appreciate your help tracking some down. Thanks! Regards, --Jayzel 18:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tag

I've added a bunch of "cit needed" tags to the article. I will try to find the original sources myself, but if I don't, I will remove the uncited info from the article within two weeks, save anyone else finding the citations. Regards, --Jayzel 06:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Waxman letter not appropriate for a bio

I really think that inclusion of petty criticism of a "leak" over the investigation of Berger should not be included in an bio about Berger himself. First, investigations of government officials are not state secrets. Second, do you honestly think an investigation of a former national security advisor for theft and destruction of documents could possibly be kept silent by all those involved (archive workers, justice department people, FBI, et al). Third, it may have had some worthwhile significance while the investigation was ongoing, but now that berger pleaded guilty it seems like an almost silly complaint. Lastly, again as this is a biographical article about Berger, the info seems inappropriate as it does not directly relate to Berger himself. Its not criticism of or by Berger, but by a third party towards investigators. Regards, --Jayzel 01:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Three observations. 1] If we are going to include a partisan report criticizing the subject of a bio, we need to include any substantiative criticisms of that report. Period. Wikipedia=NPOV. 2] I think you significantly underestimate how much of a departure the actions of senior officials (i.e. DOJ political appointees) were in this case. The House Committee of Oversight and Government Reform was perfectly capable of doing its own investigation of Berger directly; in fact, the Chair of that Committee has the power to issue subpoenas without even a vote. That instead of doing so, they focused their efforts on the internal working papers of the DOJ investigation, shows rather clearly that they intended to find substantive fault with the work the career prosecutors assigned to the case did. More importantly, the staff's failure to do so is indicative of the quality and credibility of Brachfeld and Hillman's work, which largely dismisses the secondary accusations as conspiracy theories in contradition with the facts. Again, if we're going to have multiple paragraphs entertaining these accusations, including half a dozen talking-head cites (none of which have any additional useful facts behind them), we need to show the other side of the story. 3] I am still amazed that no one - not even Berger's harshest critics - noticed that by initially lying to investigators in this case, he is absolutely guilty of Obstruction of Justice. I've been googling in vain for anyone (other than myself) to write this up so I can cite it, but there's just nothing there.

Anonymous Wikipedian 02:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Your comments are all well and good and I have no substantive objections to make, but they don't address my concern about the silly Waxman letter in relation to a biographical article on Berger. As for your thoughts on Berger obstructing justice, there is no evidence Berger lied to DOJ investigators. There is only evidence Berger lied to the press and indirectly the American people (unfortunately, lieing to the press and public is not a crime). Regards, --Jayzel 03:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Your point on this being a bio is well taken, but the problem remains. If we mention the GOP staff report in this biographical article, we have to mention substantiative criticisms of it as well. You may think the Waxman letter is "silly," but as it came from the ranking minority member of the House Oversight committee, I see it as no more or less silly than the GOP staff report.
We do have another option: create a separate, linked, "(possibly true) Conspiracy Theories related to Berger theft of Classified Documents" page, which would discuss the controversy in its entirety. We could even go blog-diving to find juicy quotes seeking to blame Clinton for 9/11 (which is what most of this stuff seems to be about - believe me, I've read a ton of opinion pages about it). I'm just not sure I like the idea any better. Right now the document flows reasonably well as a bio, and this episode is important enough to keep on the main page. Hmmm. Tell you what. I'll trim the paragraph you don't like down sometime today or tomorrow, and you tell me what you think.
Insofar as the Obstruction of Justice charge, I'm pretty sure that deliberately lying to the National Archives Staff, which has responsibility for maintaining this Top Secret and Codeword clearance documents, also qualifies. Well, OK. Reasonably sure. Maybe the DOJ investigators just decided the issue was fuzzy enough to cut Berger a break on that one. Regards, Anonymous Wikipedian 18:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I like the changes. Looks good. Now if I can only find the time to expand the "Clinton administration" section some more, we may just have a featured article on our hands. Regards, --Jayzel 03:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral POV?

This article is really skewed against Berger, particularly the section about his presumed guilt or innocence. I don't believe the paragraph beginning with

Mr Berger must have had a reason to steal and destroy the documents.

is really encyclopedic - it corresponds more to a petulant rant. I for one would happily erase it. --Feralcats 21:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You are quite correct. But the proper action to take when met with political wiki-vandalism by an anonymous poster isn't to add a NPOV adjudication tag. Just revert it. (Which I did.)
Reread it now, and tell me whether you still think the article is skewed against Berger. I think not, but then that could be my own subconscious prejudices coming into play. If you have any constructive way to give a more accurate, and neutral, accounting in this Bio, please let me know. Anonymous Wikipedian 20:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The statement "However neither they, nor the committee report, detail an alternate theory in which multiple thefts of the same document are key." simply isn't in the citation. The blockquote is as valid, and from the same source as the other block quote which you don't seem to mind. 148.63.236.141 02:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
First, you really need to start a new section, rather than add this one. Second, as to your complaints, the WSJ OpinionJournal states "This gives the lie to Mr. Berger's story that he was taking the documents for his own convenience, to assist with his preparation for testimony to the commission. If that were the whole story, one copy of document 217 would surely have been sufficient." They do not, however, specify what exactly the "whole story" (or theory) is that they believe - which is what is noted in the article. If, for example, the WSJ now proposes that Berger was actually working for Chineese Communists, are Chineese Communists somehow unable to use a copy machine? The Prosecutors in the case assert that Berger's taking of 5 copies of the same document (3 of which he destroyed, 2 of which were returned after he was caught) is evidence that he was taking them for his own personal convenience. To qualify as an encyclopedic reference, any alternative theory must be fully fleshed out. This new alternative theory is not, therefore it does not qualify for inclusion. Anonymous Wikipedian 18:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
It is highly POV to include a quote from the WSJ while they supported one view but to keep deleting their quote from when they changed their opinion in regards to Berger. Either both quotes should be kept or neither quote should be included but instead simply cited. I prefer the second approach but you seem to only want the older quote. 148.63.236.141 02:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
First, thank you for at least beginning to follow wiki guidelines about editing on controversial topics. You will find that you will get a lot further by hashing things out on the talk page before making significant changes, than engaging in edit wars.
Next, as to your points, they are almost entirely misapplied. The first WSJ editorial, like most opinion pieces, would not itself be encyclopedic, if it were not for direct quotes of the prosecutors in the case. (Indeed, it's rather ironic in this day and age where we have so much editorializing in supposedly hard news, to find so much news in an editorial.) However, the WSJ's opinions subsequent opinions are not. Let me illustrate using a hypothetical: imagine that an Al Jazera editorial condemning Osama Bin Laden contained a direct quote from the terrorist himself that he gave only them. That would make it encyclopedic. But it would not automatically make subsequent opinions, even an evolving ("gee he ain't so bad" in Arabic) opinion of Osama Bin Laden by AL Jazera encyclopedic. I, and a number of other wiki editors, hashed the compromise - of referring to the subsequent WSJ article but not highlighting it early on. And in fact, you've overwritten carefully vetted text not only in this, but several other places. Some editors insisted that even including Waxman's letter at all (termed "silly") did not even belong in this bio on Berger.
And that is, ultimately, what this is - a biography of Mr. Berger. If you want to actually improve this bio, rather than push a political point of view (and BTW don't think I don't know you suddenly came back because Rush is pushing the "Scooter is in jail; Burgler got off" thing right now - I listen to him too sometimes), you would do well to see what you can dig up about his tenure in the Clinton administration, rather than focus all your efforts on this scandal. Anonymous Wikipedian 04:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
No, I haven't ever listened to Rush Limbaugh. You seem to care very much about this one single issue but its blinded you to keeping it POV. 148.63.236.141 21:18, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmmmm. OK. Well then it was just happened to be random coincidence that you came back when you did. Regardless, I've decided that while deleting the text saying that "critics accuse Barger of crimes more sinister than mishandling classified documents" (which is an accurate description, BTW - they're not accusing him of littering), it's not a big enough point to argue about. So I won't dispute it. Anonymous Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 00:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC).
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../s/a/n/Talk%7ESandy_Berger_5f82.html"