Sandy Berger's little indiscretion

There is no question that Sandy Berger, former National Security Advisor to President Clinton, walked out of the National Archives with classified documents related to the Clinton administration's efforts to combat terrorism (link requires registration; see bugmenot.com if you don't wanna register yourself). Berger claims it was an innocent mistake. Others see this as a deliberate attempt to remove information from the archives and/or provide that information to the Kerry campaign, to which Berger was an informal advisor.

I've become rather enamored of a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte which says, "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence." For example, when a friend speculated that the recent announcement that some of Bush's payroll records were destroyed in a failed attempt to restore the microfilm they were stored on was suspicious, I responded with that quote. The explanation given is entirely plausible. Yes, it's possible that one or more people in the DoD arranged this on purpose, but it's less likely. Restoring microfilm that has deteriorated is difficult work and doesn't always succeed.

Do Berger's actions fall under the category of malice or incompetence? If we assume malice, the motivation and opportunity are clear and don't require any examination. So let's see if we can explain it by incompetence.

First of all, this man is a former national security advisor to a president. He clearly is familiar with the handling of classified information. He's also certainly an intelligent person; you don't occupy that position in a presidential administration if you're not (unless you believe that Clinton appointed stupid people). Given that, is it really plausible that he accidentally walked out with large amounts of paper. Assuming the bit about him stuffing stuff down his pants and socks is false, he would have had to put it all in his briefcase and then close the lid.

And there's further information that fuels the suspicion that it wasn't entirely innocent.

I'm inclined to think that this cannot be easily explained by incompetence. Therefore, the alternative is likely the truth.

And it's not just a question of whether or not he did it on purpose. Dale Franks at QandO had this to say:

There is more than a whiff of scandal about this. But, what is also interesting to me is the mind-set that this performance indicates. It is the sheer arrogance of a man who believes that the normal rules that apply to the little people don't apply to him. He's Sandy Berger. He's above all that.