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While most of the news buzz today is about the Iraq surge, or the Donald Trump-Rosie O'Donnell spat, can we take a look back at the "Sandy Berger steals secret documents from the National Archives" story? This is just too cool to let it slide by.

Just say the summary details aloud: Former national security adviser to President Clinton risks his career, reputation and possibly prison to steal documents from our National Archives.

His position as national security adviser - a post that doesn't require Senate confirmation - is important only in terms of what access it gave him. In that light, Berger had access to our deepest, darkest, randiest secrets. He was deputy national security adviser during Clinton's first term, stepping up to the top spot in the second term.

Ultimately, though, Berger's power came from his relationship with Clinton. He'd become one of Clinton's closest friends in 1972, working with him on the McGovern campaign. He'd long had Clinton's confidence, and, in return, he offered unflagging loyalty. He didn't serve his country, he served Clinton.

While still in office, Clinton asked Berger to begin a review of National Security Council documents that were going into the National Archives, a task Berger reportedly loathed.

Clinton probably never imagined Berger would one day be required to sift through many of the same documents and smuggle them out of the archive, but, Gemini Christmas, that came in handy, didn't it?

Beginning in 2002, Berger, private citizen, walked into the archives four times and filled his trousers and socks with classified documents. Lost between news of Terri Schiavo's death on March 31, 2005, and Pope John Paul II's passing on April 2 was Justice's announcement that it had cut a deal with Berger - for a $50,000 fine, a crushing blow to this multimillionaire.

His light treatment is a courtesy I suspect you or I wouldn't receive if we purloined a few hundred pages from the archives. So why, nearly two years later, do I write about this?

Over the holidays a friend asked what I thought Berger was really up to. In all honesty, I answered, I hadn't paid much attention to it. I wasn't alone, he said and then asked me to voice the summary details of the matter aloud.

I did. So now I'm asking: Just what did Berger slip into the Area 51 of his Fruit of the Looms that could be so damning or dangerous that he would risk so much?

It looks like we'll never really know, but it's more troubling that no one really stepped up to find out. The final House committee report concluded that there was no way of knowing what all Berger stole and destroyed.

In essence, Berger got away with it and whatever it was was important enough to destroy at the risk of ruining his life. That's as troubling today as it was 24 months ago.

Gardner is an Albuquerque writer and political consultant.