The "Strange Doctrines" Undercroft

Is the Downing Street Memo Story Growing Legs?

Perhaps. Maybe this will drive the folks at Power Line to "prove" the document a forgery.

UPDATE: Well, Power Line took a pass. Not to worry--Captain's Quarters and Jonah Goldberg are on the case (as it were).

(Via Juan Non-Volokh and Kevin Drum.)

Moderation Howls

Moderation meets prevarication. Shrillness results.

Stein's Got Stones, That's For Sure

Ben Stein doesn't understand what Dick Nixon did that was so bad:

Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?

Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable....

No suprise that Stein would excuse lying, since that's what he's doing here. (Surely Stein's capacious, trivia-rich memory can recall that Nixon did more than just lie about the burglary.)

Anyway, Stein closes with this nigh insane suggestion:

[T]his is the great boast of the enemies of Richard Nixon, including Mark Felt: they made the conditions necessary for the Cambodian genocide.

Someone please give this man another game show.

Woman Who Gave Wendy's the Finger Fingered

Story here. The police probably got a hand from an anonymous tip.

What.

Did Berger "Destroy" NARA Documents?

Recall that former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger was accused of illegally removing classified documents from the National Archives. Well, he has now entered a guilty plea on the charge.

But the surreality of it all still impresses. Perhaps the strangest part of the story:

An associate of Berger told CNN the former national security adviser admitted to the Justice Department he originally took five copies of an after-action report -- one during his September 2003 visit to the Archives and four during his October 2003 trip.

When he returned to his office and compared the copies he had, he believed several were basically the same, the associate said.

He admitted to officials that he then used scissors to cut up three copies that night while at his office, they said. [My emphasis.]

First of all, who the hell is "they"? The line of reporting on Berger's alleged admission of shredding the documents is all attributed to "an associate" of Berger. Are the "officials" also being sourced?

Setting that aside, if Berger really did admit to cutting up national security documents with scissors, what leverage did he have to cop a lesser guilty plea? (Or is it lesser? See parenthetical discussion below.) Once he admitted that he destroyed the documents, his story that he inadvertently removed and retained them is, shall we say, significantly less colorable. In which case we should expect that deliberately removing, retaining and destroying the documents would be part of the charge. It's not. Why not? (Note: there is no puzzle here if the applicable statutes don't define separate offenses for deliberately destroying a document. See, e.g., Title 18 § 793, which doesn't appear to differentiate removal, retention or destruction, and doesn't have an intent requirement. I'm kind of surprised about this, though I'm not an expert, and it's possible other statutes apply.)

I should note that several reports on the story don't mention anything about this alleged admission. (See, e.g., this BBC report.) Are these outlets being lax? (Another instance of "liberal bias"?) Or did they just not find the story credible for the reasons stated?

On the whole, then, I don't know what's stranger--the Berger story, or the reporting on it.

UPDATE: Obsidian Wings is also puzzled by the reporting on this.

But now look at this odd remark by one OW commenter:

The documents could have contained some variation of wording which would have been siezed upon by conservatives to pin the blame for 9/11 on Clinton. Berger saw this and decided to do the right thing by destroying them. Or perhaps these documents reference top secret material which would harm national security if more widely known. Again Berger did the right thing by destroying them.

Wow. Well, that certainly is one way of looking at it...

"Feel-Good" Fuehrer

Der Spiegel's Jody K. Biehl has this report on Goetz Aly's new book on Hitler. Contrary to the standard view that Germans found Hitler's reign oppressive, Aly's theory is that Hitler "not only made Germans feel important, but also made sure they were well cared-for by the state":

To do so, he gave them huge tax breaks and introduced social benefits that even today anchor the society. He also ensured that even in the last days of the war not a single German went hungry. Despite near-constant warfare, never once during his 12 years in power did Hitler raise taxes for working class people. He also...pampered soldiers and their families, offering them more than double the salaries and benefits that American and British families received. []

Financing such home front "happiness" was not simple and Hitler essentially achieved it by robbing and murdering others, Aly claims. Jews. Slave laborers. Conquered lands. All offered tremendous opportunities for plunder, and the Nazis exploited it fully, he says.

Once the robberies had begun, a sort of "snowball effect" ensued and in order to stay afloat, he says Germany had to conquer and pilfer from more territory and victims. "That's why Hitler couldn't stop and glory comfortably in his role as victor after France's 1940 surrender." Peace would have meant the end of his predatory practices and would have spelled "certain bankruptcy for the Reich."

Portal Blogging

A few quick links:

• Dan Froomkin (in the WaPo) Fisks the Bush-Putin lovefest press conference. (Via Michael Froomkin.)
• Brad DeLong excerpts a charming blast from Belle Waring's past, discussing some exercises (as can be seen here and here) in the will to desire.
• Charles Harley queries (in Der Spiegel), "Could Bush be Right?"¹
• Stanley Fish argues that the problem with Summers' remarks about women in science isn't about the substance of his remarks (though Fish does think Summers is wrong on the merits) as much as it is with his professional role as a university president.

¹Answer: Yes. Though Bush also could be wrong.

On the Occasion of HST's Death

Hunter S. Thompson is dead. Waking Up in Bliss has a quotation:

Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.

Nixon laughed when I told him this. "Don't worry," he said. "I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same way about you."

(Via Wonkette.)

Jeff Glannon is Not 100 Feet Tall

From a classic Saturday Night Live skit, "The Pepsi Syndrome," in which President Carter (as played by Dan Akroyd) prevents a nuclear catastrophe, only to suffer extreme hypergrowth (he becomes the "Amazing Colossal President") due to nuclear exposure:

1st Reporter: Is the President 100 ft tall?
Power Plant Spokesperson: No, of course not. That's ridiculous.
2nd Reporter: Is the president 90 ft tall?
Spokesperson: No comment.

Jeff Gannon seems to be taking a similar tack in answering questions about his knowledge of the classified Plame memo.

Kink in the Rehnquist-Deep Throat Theory

Slate's Timothy Noah effectively debunks my theory:

Rehnquist was sworn in as Supreme Court justice fully five months before the Watergate break-in. By the time the crucial events took place, he would have been out of the loop.

So it wasn't Rehnquist. Which means it could only have been...Pope John Paul II.