HERE ARE the two key sentence from yesterdays Washington Post: “[Sandy] Berger returned two of the after-action drafts within days, according to his attorneys. Other drafts of the after-action document, they said, were apparently discarded.”

As any lawyer who has ever argued over the contents of a brief knows, the stuff that gets left out can be the most telling material of all–indicative of prejudices and priorities, sensitivities and credibility. Berger’s sticky fingers have left a gap in the record of the Clinton administration’s response to the growing threat posed by al Qaeda. Unless other files exist with all the same drafts and handwritten notes that Berger destroyed, we will never be able to conclude whether Berger’s actions were simply another display of fecklessness and recklessness on an issue of national security, or an attempt to bleach the record of Clinton-era malpractice on matters of terror.