Airport security

Georgia Congressman John Linder just said publicly what I thought no politician would ever say:

We are doing an awful lot, and maybe too much, on airlines right now, spending five billion dollars a year looking for toenail clippers and box cutters ... It is my view that no airplane will ever hit a commercial building, which is the only value they have in taking out large numbers of people. It is my view that passengers won't allow that to happen.

I've been saying this for three years. There's no chance of another Sept. 11-style attack. The passengers on the three planes that hit their targets were operating under the old hijacked-plane assumption. Before Sept. 11, people hijacked planes and demanded they be flown somewhere or that some government release prisoners. None of those passengers felt the need to stop the hijacking because they never assumed the plane would be used as a missile. When the passengers on the fourth plane got word of the other attacks, they promptly foiled the hijackers' plan.

I'm sure Linder will take some heat for his words, but somebody needed to say it. Let's quit spending so much time and money keeping butter knives off airplanes, and start looking for the next likely terrorist strike.

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Osama. Yo mama.

So there's a rumor that Osama bin Laden's dead. In the old days (read before 1993), the only people with this knowledge would be journalists. They would serve as the gatekeepers for this kind of information -- choosing which bit of rumor was good enough to publish. Right now, newspaper editors are discussing whether or not they should run a story about the rumor; I'm sure the fact that many people have already read this "news" elsewhere is weighing on their decision.

Of course, there was a rumor a few months back that he was dead, and then that last videotape was released. This is likely the same deal.

But I like living in a world where I can hear crazy rumors like this and make up my own mind about it.

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Bratz Babyz

Bratz babies. Quite unsettling. My earlier thoughts here. Another blogger has taken up the cause. He writes:

"They know how to flaunt it, and they’re keeping it real in the crib."

What exactly is the penalty for failing to keep it real in the crib? Someone busts a cap in yo Pamper? I know I am old and so out of step it’s a wonder I don’t just appear as an indistinct smear, but was it really necessary to push the Age of Sultry Hussyism down to the infant stage? And who, exactly, are the Babyz flaunting it for? Are we going to see a commercial with Elmo in sunglasses, sitting with his legs sprawled, spanking some pliant Babyz with one hand while gumming down some mashed crack?

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Disturbing

I don't know what to do with this information.

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Growing pains

Interesting piece in the Christian Science Monitor about the pace of growth in Las Vegas. Sounds pretty miserable for the residents. Couldn't imagine raising a family in Vegas -- water shortages, packed schools, billboards advertising sex delivered to your hotel room.

But, visiting four times a year? That, I can imagine.

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Bad Polls

Great Powerline post. A Washington Post poll unfavorable to the GOP oversampled Democrats. I won't call it bias, but it makes you wonder who's making decisions over at the Post.

Credibility figures for the press have been dropping for 17 years. I wonder why?

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Mesothelioma

Hey, I'm starting to get those Mesothelioma ads. If you see one, make sure to click on it. It's going to make me rich, rich, rich.

Mesothelioma. Asbestos. Mesothelioma. Asbestos.

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Lebanon

Syria just pulled out of Lebanon -- great news for Democracy in the Mideast. Here's a good post on why Lebanon matters. Couple of good lines:

Most people who live here - but sadly not all - have had enough of hatred and sectarian violence. They desperately want to bury the past. They spent the last 15 years learning to tolerate one another without going on rampages. Now they are moving beyond mere tolerance and are learning to like each other.

...Lebanon's civil war drew in four foreign powers: Syria, Iran, Israel, and the United States. Those four powers are still simmering in a state of cold war today. Naturally enough, the two that are ruled by dictatorships - Syria and Iran - are also state sponsors of terrorism.

P.S. I always think of Sergeant Maxwell Klinger whenever the subject of Lebanon comes up. I watched way too much TV as a kid.

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Smarter TV watchers

Great post over at Dan Drezner's blog. Turns out the average American's not so stupid after all. His third example, from an article in the NY Times, details that television is actually pretty cognitively demanding. The article cites "24" as a quality, thinking-man's show that requires astute concentration. Then we're told that "Law & Order" is nothing but rehashed "Dragnet" episodes essentially designed for the simpleton.

I'm embarrassed to admit which of those two shows we watch around here.

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Chips Ahoy!

I recently bought a pack of Chips Ahoy! Cremewiches. The new cookie features two Chips Ahoy! Cookies put together with some Oreo-like creme in the center. They are delicious. I'm not sure why it took so long for these to be invented. Seems like a simple synergy of products (Nabisco owns both types of cookies.) My only complaint is the name of the product. "Cremewich" doesn't really do justice to the revolutionary nature of the cookie. Perhaps "Chipwich" or "AhoyCremes" would have been a better name.

One other complaint. I miss the old Chips Ahoy! packaging. They once came in a simple thick-paper package with a twist tie. The cookies inside had no plastic covering them, just some corrogated cardboard to keep the two sleeves of cookies apart. Now that was a cookie bag you could get into and out of easily. I suppose the new packaging keeps the cookies fresher, but do we really want to live in a world where freshness always triumphs over convenience? Not me, baby. Not me.

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End of an Epidemic

Here's another good post on the fallability of trusting official studies. Apparently scientists were incredibly overstating how many people will die from obesity. Scientists need to tighten up their standards or pretty soon people will start believing academics as much as they believe journalists.

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

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Studies

Interesting read from the founder of Teach for America. She takes a newspaper to task for reporting the findings of a study that she says is misleading. Although I can't comment on the specifics she cites, I certainly have seen a wide latitude in the standards set for academic research. Many studies are little more than fluffed-up opinion pieces that back up the author's preconceived notions.

Journalists should be better educated to learn which ones can hold up to scrutiny. Reporting the findings of a "preliminary" study should always be avoided.

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Future shock

Great article written by the deputy editorial page editor of the Arizona Republic posted over at Powerline. Take the time to read it. Here's a great bit:

The bloggers are demanding better standards and less bias – not unreasonable demands given journalism’s current track record. But they’re also creating stimulating and often irresistible discussion around the news we produce. Journalism tomorrow, thanks to forces like the blogosphere, will grow more competitive. The best journalists will flourish. The mediocre will be exposed and washed out.

As well as anyone's said it.

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Hmmm...

I'm not very Catholic, but I can't really disagree with this:

We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires.

A message from the new pope.

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Mesothelioma

I hear lawyers pay top dollar for people who conduct Internet searches for Mesothelioma, the disease associated with exposure to asbestos. Let's find out. Mesothelioma. Asbestos. Mesothelioma. Asbestos.

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Success, baby. Success

According to Google, I alone possess "the best master's thesis on the planet."

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Complicit journalism

Instapundit notes this paragraph buried at the bottom of a CNN report:

The U.S. military reported Saturday that a CBS News stringer detained after a gunbattle between U.S. forces and insurgents this month "tested positive for explosive residue." "Multinational forces continue to investigate potential collaboration between the stringer and terrorists, and allegations the stringer had knowledge of future terrorist attacks," said Sgt. John Franzen of Task Force Freedom in Mosul.

Perhaps we should award the stringer a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting.

A journalism school recently released a survey of journalists detailing their thoughts on their coverage of the Iraq War. The reporters were asked to list the types of images that their organizations prohibited them from distributing. Of course, many of the journalists said they were limited in the use of pictures featuring dead soldiers and civilians. The headlines from the survey mostly followed this example: "Study: Media Self-Censored Some Iraq Coverage."

An accurate assessment, I'm sure. But the survey was interesting for the questions that weren't asked. For instance, do any of these news organizations prohibit publishing photos from people who are either implicitly or overtly working with terrorists? An interesting question, but one no one thought to ask. It certainly doesn't appear as though these news organizations have considered that they may be used as tools of terrorist propaganda. In the case of CBS News they may have been used even more viciously.

No journalist should discount the seriousness of these charges. If the American public comes to think that journalists are tacitly working with the enemy, their trust will erode even further. Unfortunately, no one but right-wing bloggers seems to think this a concern.

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Master's Thesis

Today, I started to write my master's thesis for my M.A. in Journalism. I aim to write the best master's thesis on the planet. I write that last line because I found that no one on the Internet has yet written those words.

In a week or so, a Google search for "the best master's thesis on the planet" will lead right here, baby.

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Read Not Quite Everything About It

The NY Times ombudsmen offers a critique of the paper's decision to muzzle its coverage of the Columbia University report in order to get an exclusive. Much reaction to the deal mirrored my own:

Samuel Glasser, a reader in Port Washington, N.Y., who identifies himself as a former reporter and editor with three major newspaper chains, spoke for many: "The idea that editors and reporters would even have to be told not to do such a thing in the first place, let alone that they would 'forget' the policy, defies belief."

He then explains the decision in the larger context of newspapers' unending quest to be the first to report something. He asks a great quesiton. Why? He might have a point. A profession struggling with credibility issues might want to stress accuracy and ethics over speed.

Of course, this blog is struggling with credibility issues as well. Perhaps I should follow my own advice.

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Clairvoyant reporting

In the third paragrah of an AP report on increasing violence in Iraq:

In southeastern Iraq, 11 detainees angry over their treatment by U.S. captors broke out of Camp Bucca, the military's largest detention center in the nation by climbing through a hole in the fence.

I wonder how the reporter, Alexandra Zavis, knew that the detainees were angry over their treatment at U.S. hands? If she interviewed them, she didn't report it. Perhaps they did escape because they were being mistreated, but if the reporter doesn't know, it shouldn't be stated as fact. After all, they may have just been homesick.

CORRECTION: Ooops, as my fearless critic has pointed out, the reporter actually did interview a detainee. Incredibly poor mistake, on my part. My apologies to Ms. Zavis.

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Al Jazeera -- Paragon of Objectivity

Here's an interesting abstract from the Winter 2005 edition of the Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics:

This article reports on a cross-cultural analysis of television coverage of the 2003 Iraq War that seeks to assess and understand the dimensions of objectivity in the news during wartime. A total of 1,820 stories on five American networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel [FNC]) and on the Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera were included in the study. The study assessed bias on two levels: tone of individual stories and the macro-level portrait of the war offered by each network. Results showed that at the story level, the overwhelming number of stories broadcast by Al Jazeera and the American networks other than FNC were balanced.

OK, so Al Jazeera and the network news are balanced, but Fox is biased. Check. Even if this study is true, do the networks really want to be in the same boat as Al Jazeera?

I did a quick read of the article and found some elementary questions about its methodology. The authors allowed individual coders to judge the "tone" of each story on a 5-point scale. One of the guidelines to bias was whether the reporters used the term "our troops" when talking about coalition forces. That criteria alone would produce the "Fox is biased" result.

(Very inside baseball critique: Also, the authors wisely used more than one coder, so they could compare the results of each coder to check for reliability. However, the authors only had one Arabic coder who could understand the Al Jazeera broadcast, so there was no intracoder reliabiltiy for one of the most important elements of the study.)

In short, the results are debatable. I can think of far better ways to conduct a content analysis than giving coders a 5-point scale and letting them guess. But, the authors may have had their result in mind before they started the process. Perhaps they'll say the same about the results of my content analyses. I wonder if I'll find mine as easy to publish?

Perhaps we're going to start seeing more and more outright partisanship in peer-reviewed journals. Don't forget this widely cited study (in the Lancet) which found 100,000 Iraqis died in the war. It has been widely debunked.

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South Park Conservatives

Great review of the new South Park book which casts the series as an answer to the obligatory leftism we've been inundated with for the last three decades. Here's a great quote:

Last year, James Pierson of the WeeklyStandard.com coined a term called "punitive liberalism" to describe the post-1972 Left's belief that America was always on the wrong side of the key events in history, and therefore deserved to be punished. It was a worldview very different from the older, pro-American FDR/JFK-style of liberalism of the previous generation. It first began to be noticed in shows like M*A*S*H, where Alan Alda's Hawkeye could find little difference between America and the communist North Koreans and Chinese. By the mid-1990s, when he wasn't producing cartoons pushing radical environmentalism, Ted Turner commissioned a history of the Cold War for CNN, and its producer was quoted as saying that Turner demanded that the documentary series deal with the Cold War "unjingoistically," adding that Turner "did not want a triumphalist approach". In other words, Turner didn't want to emphasize why it was a good thing that America had won.

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Blackface

It seems like every few years some idiot decides to dress up in blackface. You'd think that at some point the next person who thinks this seems like a pretty funny joke would remember the reaction that the last person got. I guess not.

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That's Nutty

Here's a funny story. The head Coach of the University of Arkansas football team gave pink jerseys to players who were loafing in practice. Seems like a good motivator, until someone got offended. The coach's response: "I was shocked. I'm just trying to get these guys to tackle."

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The transition

Dow Jones made more money from its Internet operations last quarter than it did from its print operations. A sign of the times.

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Google checking

Instapundit makes a great point: "Don't these guys realize that we have Google?"

His post responds to a columnist who espouses a popular view: "I don't recall any prewar speeches about delivering democracy to the Middle East."

The post then lists three separate speeches before the Iraq War in which the strategy of bringing democracy to the Middle East was clearly defined. The WMD angle may have gotten more press, but it's not as though the democracy angle was just invented in hindsight.

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Sec Def visit

Great post from Instapundit. You'll never read about the disdain some members of the military hold for the media while getting your news from most media sources.

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Media Credibility

Good stuff on media diversity. Even The NY Times' Nick Kristof (not know for his conversative views) admits newsrooms need to expand their hiring practices:

We also need more diverse newsrooms. When America was struck by race riots in the late 1960's, major news organizations realized too late that their failure to hire black reporters had impaired their ability to cover America. In the same way, our failure to hire more red state evangelicals limits our understanding of and ability to cover America today.

Before we can do anything about the problem, we need to admit that lack of diversity is a problem. At my journalism school, I've heard no one come close to mentioning this as a problem. But, I've gotten plenty of emails on the listserv about this organization.

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CJR

Columbia Journalism Review chides the NYT's for their recent deal with Columbia University.

But the story behind the story is still dismaying. The fact that some at the Times decided to subvert their own reporting by agreeing to ignore one side of a debate is disturbing, if not wholly insulting, to the paper's readership. And given that in this case, student journalists on a campus newspaper upheld a higher standard of journalistic integrity than the "paper of record," the Times is right to be embarrassed.

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I'm tired

This graduate school thing is really not as easy as you might imagine.

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More on the AP photo

Powerline is all over the AP Pulitzer photo controversy. Interesting read. Apparently the NY Times is doing a story on it in Monday's paper.

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Don't rely too heavily on Wikipedia

The NY Times apparently copied a Wikipedia entry verbatim into one of their articles. The information was a tad off. I guess this will always be a problem with an open-source encyclopedia, even if mistakes are usually caught within 5 minutes. Not sure how you solve this problem.

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Media collusion

Great post from Instapundit on the detention of a CBS news staffer in Iraq :

Many Americans see the press as not neutral, but actively opposed to U.S. war efforts. The press doesn't seem to appreciate the depth of the problem.

He's right. Journalists have fallen into a trap created by the notion of "objectivity." In order to be objective, journalists are taught, both sides of the story must be given. But covering the other side shouldn't include hiring people who know when attacks will occurr. Or covering a terrorist strike after being told where it would happen. The media are helping to advance the terrorist cause by giving these attacks any coverage. They're not being objective, they're taking sides. Against the U.S.

This seems pretty logical. The ethical codebook for working in Iraq should be simple: No coverage of any event where the media were forewarned of an attack. Of course, journalists appear to be doing the opposite, under the guise of "objectivity." The media are so far off base on this one, they're handing out Pulitzer Prizes to the guilty parties.

The problem seems to be top down. This survey of journalists working in Iraq found 80 percent of the respondents didn't have any firm guidelines on appropriate coverage. The survey -- conducted by the American University School of Communication -- didn't even ask if the news organizations had any rules concerning violence that was created purely for media consumption.

I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

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Do not pass Go

I hate spam as much as the next guy, but I think 9 years in prison is a little tough on a guy who just sent out a bunch of emails.

According to the AP story, he defrauded a lot people with his spam-induced scams. Great, charge him with fraud. Doesn't putting people in prison for annoying us with spam seem a little arbitrary?

A lot of people annoy me. Can we put them in jail too?

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The Big Dig

I knew this sounded familiar. And then I remembered this episode of Dr. Who. A classic.

I hope this project doesn't suffer the same fate. It destroyed the Earth! But only a parallel Earth in which everyone had mustaches. This Earth was saved.

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Hybrid cars

Despite my conservative leanings, I must admit I've been pretty excited about hybrid cars. The half-electric cars are what every freemarket capitalist wants to see in a green program -- save the environment and some cash too. I figured I'd probably buy one in a few years since the extra cost would be offset by the enormous savings in gas mileage.

Apparently, Consumer Reports would beg to differ. Check out this blog that sums up the big MPG savings. That's disappointing.

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Media decline

Another great column from Jay Rosen over at PressThink. Particularly insightful are his summations of a report from the former head of MSNBC. Rosen finds Merrill Brown refreshingly truthful about the business:

What I mean by truthtelling is passages like this: "the future of the U.S. news industry is seriously threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by young people away from traditional sources of news." And: "Newspapers have no clear strengths and are the least preferred choice for local, national and international news."

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Reporter: No more blog reading

Interesting post over at pjnet. In fact, it reads just like a news article, so is it one? A debate for another day.

Anyway, NY Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller announced that she's "gone cold turkey and stopped" reading blogs. At first glance, this seems like a bad move -- akin to a buggy whip manufacturer saying he's going to quit reading reports about this new "horseless carriage."

Interesting that Bumiller wouldn't want to read blogs. How else does she know if she's actually reporting on subjects people are interested in reading? Of course, that assumes that she thinks she's reporting for the public.

Blogs can only do reporters good. It forces them to correct mistakes and acknowledge errors in judgment. If comments from critics -- on the left and the right -- are heard and weighed, the end product will be more objective journalism.

The reporter's motto for blogs should be: Take what you need and leave the rest.

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That's a big correction

Correction from today's NY Times:

A front-page article on Thursday described a report by a committee at Columbia University formed to investigate complaints that pro-Israel Jewish students were harassed by pro-Palestinian professors. The report found "no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic," but it did say that one professor "exceeded commonly accepted bounds" of behavior when he became angry at a student who he believed was defending Israel's conduct toward Palestinians.

The article did not disclose The Times's source for the document, but Columbia officials have since confirmed publicly that they provided it, a day before its formal release, on the condition that the writer not seek reaction from other interested parties.

Under The Times's policy on unidentified sources, writers are not permitted to forgo follow-up reporting in exchange for information. In this case, editors and the writer did not recall the policy and agreed to delay additional reporting until the document had become public...

Did not recall the policy? This is so embedded in the ethos of journalism, I'm not sure there even needs to be a policy. I learned not to make deals with the subjects I was covering while working the downtown-bar beat at my student newspaper.

By the way, the New York Sun obtained a copy of the report on the same day as the Times, but didn't lower its journalistic standards to report the scoop.

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13 things

Fascinating article. Names 13 phenomena that scientists don't yet understand about the universe. I've always been fascinated by No. 9.

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Thank God for the Internet

What did we do before being able to get our hands on this information.

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AP Pulitzer

Interesting controversy brewing in the blogosphere. Some pundits are objecting to the Associated Press winning the Pulitzer Prize for a series of photos including this one showing the broad-daylight execution of an Iraqi election worker.

The AP has said that their photographer was "tipped off" to a "demonstration" that would occurr on that street. Of course, this doesn't mean the photographer was in cahoots with the terrorists, but it does raise the same uncomfortable questions about when are journalists being used as tools of terrorist propaganda.

There's no easy answer here. Only the photographer (an Iraqi stringer, apparently) can tell us if he knew a public execution would be held on that street. I won't judge him without knowing all the facts.

But perhaps the AP shouldn't have released the photo. Terrorists contacted the photographer, the photographer showed up, and then the terrorists killed a man in front of the camera. Is that news? It was staged for the camera. Staging a photo is the cardinal sin for most newspaper photographers I know.

So, it's a judgment call. Do we release the photo or not? I'm sure they debated it at the AP office. I just hope they used their best judgment.

I think the underlying worry here is that journalists don't always exercise the best judgment because they're biased against Americans. If the former international head of CNN thinks its official U.S. policy to kill journalists, then surely this bias could cloud his judgement.

Maybe bias influenced the AP's decision. Maybe not. But in an effort to tell "the other side of the story" the AP ended up crossing the line of good journalistic ethics. In a bid to appear objective, they lost their objectivity.

I wouldn't have released the picture; it would only encourage more action just like it. I certainly wouldn't have awarded it the Pulitzer Prize.

Of course, journalists must make decisions like this one all the time. Tomorrow they'll make another one.

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Let them be kids

My daughter will be six-years-old in May. She's now been invited to two different Bratz-themed parties.

If you're not familiar with this new line of dolls, here's the Bratz Web site. Take a second to look around. It's disturbing.

The catchy tag line: "Girls with a fashion for passion." Alas, I think my daughter will become preoccupied with fashion in her own time. I see no reason to get her thinking about it before she's six.

The whole Bratz world also continues a disquieting trend: The sexification of kids. I find something objectionable to giving my daughter a doll with a visible midriff.

I guess I should take solace from this news.

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Red Sox - Yankees

Great post on the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. I'm only now starting to get excited about tonight's game.

Though we were both raised in North Carolina, my brother and I support opposite sides of this storied rivalry. When we were in our mid-20s, he moved to Long Island and I moved to Boston. Any other year, we usually have a bet made on who will win the AL East by opening day. In fact, those bets are usually made in the dead of winter. I figure I've lost around $650 to him over the last 8 seasons. This time, though, it's different. I think we're both stunned. Last year's amazing Yankee choke, coupled with our World Series victory leaves us stumbling for how we're supposed to feel. The obligatory feelings of inferiority and superiority no longer exist. Luckily tonight will solve that problem:

I never thought I would say the words "Thank God for the Yankees," but I'm saying them now. Thank God for the Yankees. As soon as Sunday night rolls around and Yankee fans are booing Boomer, Manny, Damon and everyone else, every Sox fan will snap right into, "All right, it's time to defend the title now" mode.

A brief Red Sox tale: While watching game 4 of last year's ALCS, I considered readying the coffeemaker for the morning brew. The Sox were down run one as we were heading to the top of the ninth. It looked like we were on the verge of exiting the race for the A.L. pennant without winning one game. I figured I might as well start getting ready for bed.

As I headed for the coffemaker, I decided that making the coffee would be a sign that I had given up hope that we might tie the game and force extra innings. My instincts were right. By foregoing the bedtime ritual, I allowed the Red Sox to tie the game in the 9th and then, of course, go on to victory in the extra innings. For the following three games, I never made the coffee until after the Red Sox had secured the night's win and their inprobable 4-game comeback.

Tonight, I've decided to test fate. I've already ground tomorrow's coffee and turned on the timer. If the Red Sox lose, you can bet I won't make that mistake again.

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Boston Herald

Evidence of the decline of the newspaper business at one of my former haunts.

Boston Herald publisher Patrick Purcell says he is looking to cut the paper's labor costs by $7 million to compensate for shrinking advertising revenue and stagnant circulation.

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Nightline and the media

This is an interesting post from Instapundit. Take a second to read it.

Even if you don't agree with his and Socolow's view, journalists should understand that this is how much of America views them -- as a propaganda tool used masterfully by the enemies of our country.

Most journalists and academics I know think this is hogwash. Perhaps it is, but there's nothing changing the fact that a good chunk of the population believes this to be true. We should start trying to figure out why.

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Gay Marriage

Here's a great post on gay marriage.

I don't have a strong opinion on the issue. I figure I'll just let the people who really care one way or the other work it out and just accept whatever becomes the norm.

But, this first sentence convinced me to read it: "A really, really, really long post about gay marriage that does not, in the end, support one side or the other."

I'm glad I did.

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Berger plea

Here's the NY Times article on the Berger plea. They got the important details in the lede:

Samuel R. Berger, who as national security adviser to President Bill Clinton had access to the most secret intelligence, pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor charge of intentionally removing classified documents from a government reading room last year and destroying some of them.

The Times also restrains itself; it doesn't refer to the case as an "embarrassing episode." The paper points out: "His motives in taking the documents remain something of a mystery."

According to the Justice Department, the archives possessed copies of all the documents so the fact that Berger destroyed some of them didn't matter. The question nobody can answer: Did Berger realize that the destroyed documents were duplicates?

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Embarrassing episode or national security scandal?

Here's the lede to the New York Times article on the Sandy Berger case:

Samuel R. Berger, a national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanors charge and give up his security clearance for three years for removing classified material from a government archive, the Justice Department and associates of Mr. Berger's said Thursday.

Here's the 6th graph:

When the issue surfaced last year, Mr. Berger insisted that he had removed the classified material inadvertently. But in the plea agreement reached with prosecutors, he is expected to admit that he intentionally removed copies of five classified documents, destroyed three and misled staff members at the National Archives when confronted about it, according to an associate of Mr. Berger's who is involved in his defense but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plea has not been formalized in court.

I hope tomorrow's story gets the important details in the lede.

This scandal -- described in the Times as an "embarrassing episode" -- is clearly a case of CYA. Berger absconded with documents that must have proved embarrassing to the Clinton administration; no other explanation makes sense.

In the penultimate graph we're told that some of the documents he stole from the archives "were essentially the same, and he cut three copies into small pieces." He stole classified documents from the federal government and destroyed them. I wonder what they said?

The Times reports: "Officials with the Archives and the Sept. 11 commission ultimately determined that despite the incident, the commission had access to all the material needed in its work." If the destroyed documents were not exact duplicates, how could these officials possibly know that they weren't important? What was the nature of the relationship between these officials and Berger? I'm sure they all knew him; he was the former U.S. National Security Adviser after all. Are they just covering for him?

Most importantly, where's the skepticism from our normally skeptical press? Why do unimportant bloggers have to ask these questions?

Imagine for a moment that Donald Rumsfeld stole and destroyed classified documents related to the Abu Ghraib scandal. Would the major media outlets be more interested in that story than they appear to be in the Sandy Berger case?

Powerline sums it up: "Former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger got away with a criminal cover-up."

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