The humble guardian at the gate

We've already heard about this from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed bloggers, but Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough pull it all together in The Washington Times this morning [via Drudge Report]:

U.S. officials tell us that the FBI is focusing on a single document in its investigation of former White House National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger. Investigators are trying to determine why Mr. Berger improperly removed a highly classified after-action report by Richard A. Clarke, an aide to Mr. Berger, that was harshly critical of the Clinton administration's response to the so-called millennium terrorist plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport and other targets in late 1999.

Officials said the investigation into the removal of the Clarke memorandum is expected to lead to the declassification and publication of the document. This could expose the duplicity of Mr. Clarke, who had little criticism of the Clinton administration in public.

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies have used the millennium plot as an example of a counterterrorism success. But the Clarke memorandum is likely to portray a different picture.

As Byron York reported in National Review the other day:

Clarke apparently concluded that the millennium plot was foiled by luck -- a border agent in Washington State who happened to notice a nervous, sweating man who turned out to have explosives in his car -- and not by the Clinton administration's savvy anti-terrorism work.

Michelle Malkin refined the argument, identifying the border agent and giving credit where credit is due:

The border agent was Diana Dean, and as anyone who knows the story of her heroic actions, it had absolutely nothing to do with luck . . . That reminds me . . . gotta add Diana Dean to my list of security moms who rock.

Clintonoids' taking credit for foiling the millennium plot reminds us of the old Christmas story, "Why the Chimes Rang," a parable about "the importance of a loyal performance of the lowlier duties of life," as the book's blurb puts it, adding, presciently:

The salvation of a nation may depend upon the humble guardian of the gate quite as much as upon those who are engaged in the more spectacular struggle with giants.

Indeed, "those engaged in the more spectacular struggle with giants" appear to have been asleep at the switch.