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Who are his friends who cut him this deal? Serious question....

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My understanding is that the Public Integrity Section (within DOJ's Criminal Division -- Noel Hillman, its chief, is the government lawyer quoted about the case in today's NYT) is run by career prosecutors with particular integrity, and that political influence does not get you anywhere with them. I suspect that politics played very little part in the judicial proceedings against Berger. What club has completely forgotten is that the anger among Democrats about what Berger did had much more to do with the leaking of grand jury material to the press, and timing of that leak to serve GOP political interests.

And the Berger and Stewart cases are clearly different, which explains why the government is gunning for Martha but not for Sandy. Notwithstanding bilmore's inclination to read the worst motives into the facts, no one is suggesting that Berger destroyed documents in order to mislead people or sabotage the work of the 9/11 Commission. Were this the case, the Public Integrity Section would come down on him like a ton of bricks. And Stewart can go back to making money, but Berger's not going to get a security clearance again. (I'm not saying that's wrong, BTW.)

April fool
 

Quick post -- have to run.

What issues are you discussing and what would you suggest?

I personally think that electing judges is an abomination which leads to any number of bad things and certainly wouldn't produce less bias. So, I strongly favor an appointive system.

I think an independent judiciary is critical, so I like lifetime appointments for federal judges (part of why I hate judicial elections).

With an appointment system -- any fix essentially has to be with the ones doing the appointing. If folks stop appointing and confirming partisan hacks, you'll have fewer. How do we do that?

Maybe Grey has a point that, if the judiciary is seen as less political, the appointment process cn become less adversarial and political, and we'll get more moderate/neutral folks.

S_A_M

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

What I said was that the use of force is justified in certain circumstances even if not for self defence. I also said there are utility arguments justifying the use of torture (assuming torture is effective to get information, put overwhelming fear in the heart of the enemy, etc.) but you don't seem to buy those.

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What does this have to do with anything?

How are they different (serious question). I believe Martha Stewart got off light as well. I know people close to the case. Martha most likely knowingly traded on inside information, but for some reason they didn't have enough evidence to get her for this. She also blatantly lied to the Justice Department lawyers, which really pissed them off and that is why they went after her.

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One obvious reason as to why they are different is that Sandy copped a plea and Martha went to trial.

I suspect that you are right about why the Justice Department really went after Martha -- they assumed she was guilty, she didn't roll, they thought she lied to them, and boom.

The (presumably) unintended consequence of her situation is that there will be less willingness to be "voluntarily" interviewed by the SEC. I know that when they come calling for me after I make some money or avoid some losses in a suspisciously-timed trade in Piggly-Wiggly stock, I will lawyer-up faster than they can say "how the hell can he afford Harvey Pitt?"

So Peggy Noonan agrees with me . . .
 

And I asked what they were, and you never answered.

I find it very, very odd that someone with such a strong commitment to individual property rights subscribes to a utilitarian justification for torture. If you think torture is justified because the harm to the tortured individual is outweighed by the benefit to the torturers, so be it, but don't go invoking individual rights at other times.

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If you look back at the exchanges last summer on this topic, I think you will see that they were primarily focused with why the stuff was leaked, and why then.

It appears that Berger did not lie to DOJ lawyers. Someone here said that he acknowledged something in court that was inconsistent with past public statements by his defenders -- I've been away, so I haven't kept up lately -- but even that is not what Stewart did. The very fact that you have Berger making a plea bargain suggests that the DOJ feels differently about him. (ETA: STP)

Mugabe:Hussein::Zimbabwe:Iraq

Presumably we'll be invading Zimbabwe shortly to prevent mass murder and bring back democracy.

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I think you just answered your own question.

April fool
 

Do you really think there are a lot of baldly partisan rulings? How many ruling are there that are really even directly political?

You've got Bush v. Gore, obviously, and I'll grant you Roe (although I'm not sure it is partisan), and of course a long history of legal/constitution issues that are part of the ongoing political debate. But I have a hard time thinking of the disagreements about those issues, while part of the political discourse, as partisan.

I don't have your level of experience with bias for or against insurance defendents, so I will defer to your description. But I took his comments primarily to be in response to the distraceful things that have been said about the Schiavo judges who were just doing their jobs.

I wish we would. But unfortunately there is no oil in Zimbabwe and the powers that be think we have no "strategic interest". Like we had a strategic interest in Kosovo.

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I think his friends are out of power. Are they not? I have friends with security clearance and they tell me you could not believe the stuff they classify. They would classify toilet paper if they could. And how top secret could they have been if they were in the national archives. I have not heard of a security level clearance on this stuff. I smell political hot air. I don't think this is a big deal. Does anyone really think that Sandy Berger is out to undermine the national security of the United States? Or the fact that he took this stuff out undermined the National Security of the United States?

There was a strategic concern about Kosovo that is not mirrored in Zimbabwe. Unrest in the Balkans threatens to destabilize Europe. Think 1914.

Strangely, I'm under the impression that we intervened to "protect" the rights of a Muslim Albanian minority whose KLA had exacerbated tensions with the Slavic majority.

The Russians showed their consternation at our choice to intervene by sending their army racing to something like an airport in Kosovo under U.N. auspices.

I'm not sure how aggravating the Slavs balanced the "protection" we afforded to a people who were basically nobodies in Europe.

Therefore, I don't think even Bubba himself would claim it was done for strategic concerns..., and I don't recall hearing him say it back then (though I can't promise he didn't).

I suspect it was way more on humanitarian grounds, and partly a way of saying "hey, we're the U.S., sorry we didn't get to Bosnia quicker, but its certainly not our policy to let everybody in Europe kill their local muslims". The decision would be a lot more clear and justifiable if the KLA were not in the picture and the Montenegrans/Serbs or whatever were left without pretext for whatever killing they were doing over there.

Bottom line: I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue that it was strategic, and it wouldn't really be credible if they did, as all we did was align ourselves against the Slavs. Sorta like the Kaiser in 1914, but not so much the World's Lone Superpower intervening to keep the Kaiser and the Czar apart.