MORE ON SANDY BERGER:

It’s hard to underestimate the effect a case like this has on national-security professionals. For cynics, it shows that big players get off easy when they commit the crimes smaller fry lose their careers over. Meanwhile, spies, policy-makers and other handlers of secrets are effectively being told their efforts aren’t taken seriously. It’s a classic Washington double standard.

It certainly seems that way to me. Even Berger’s defenders — say at the WSJ — would surely admit that a Chief Warrant Officer who commited the same crime would be unlikely to get the same wristslap treatment.