DEFENSE COUNSEL: FORGET THE CHARGE, LET'S TALK TIMING
The Kerry Campaign and Terry McAuliffe aren't talking about the substantive issue of whether Sandy Berger may be a crook or what he might have been doing sneaking secret material out of the National Archives to his desk where he was putting together advice for the Kerry Campaign.

No, the're "questioning the timing". That's the real defense these days to any serious charge - especially a charge with real merit and important implications. Forget the charge, it's all about politics.

So, who stands to benefit the most from the timing of the leaks? It's not the Republicans. Better timing for them would have been next Friday, right after Kerry's acceptance speech at the DNC. When he would normally be getting loving prime time exposure from the national media as he and Edwards embarked on some wonderfully staged campaign events, he'd be forced to fire his foreign policy advisor and maybe answer a question or two about whether Berger had been using the documents for the campaign. Or whether any information that should be classified actually found it's way into a Kerry speech (I know that the type of info in this speech regarding border security is typically classified).

Another good time would have been right before the Republican convention. The "corporate" news media would be covering all of the orchestrated happiness of the pachyderms, and then cutting away to look at a juicy new Democrat scandal.

But the best time would have been on DWI Friday, right before the election. By this time, Berger's name would have been repeated in the press as a possible Secretary of State or Defense for a Kerry Administration, or, God forbid, Director of Central Intelligence. Then, boom, right before the election, it turns out that someone in whom Kerry might have put great trust had been using top secret terrorism documents as a cod piece.

Yep, that's when I'd have released it if I were the Republicans.

If I were a Democrat, I'd have gotten the story out right before the convention so that it would not interfere with the newly introduced and defined Nominee Kerry.