For weeks, the media have been reporting daily developments in the trial of Lewis "Scooter"Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former right-hand man. The case involves the revelation in a newspaper column of the identity of an intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, who happened to be the wife of an outspoken critic of the Bush administration.

Libby is accused of lying and obstructing justice.

A string of high-profile journalists have given the Libby trial added glamour, but the basic issue involves the leaking of information about the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who publicly criticized the Bush administration's justification for launching the Iraq war. Valerie Plame was employed by the CIA and it has been argued that White House officials revealed her role as a way to punish Wilson for his criticism.

The trial has focused on who said what to whom, and has featured various people testifying under oath, with different recollections of events.

The Libby trial appears to be a case of people at the highest level of government behaving badly.

But for as much publicity as this political scandal is getting, another example of top-tier political people behaving badly received little play in the major media when it occurred several years ago.

That other case, which took place in 2002 and 2003, involved former Clinton administration National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and the theft and destruction of classified documents from the National Archives.

Arguably, the Berger case is of greater importance, but its play in the media has been dwarfed by the Libby-Plame case.

Prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission, which was trying to learn what Bush and Clinton officials knew about potential terrorist attacks on U.S. targets prior to Sept. 11, 2001, Berger went to the National Archives reportedly wanting to refresh his memory on national security threats related to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

For his research, Berger visited the Achives four times. During his third visit, officials at the Archives became suspicious that he was removing classified material. The thefts on Berger's fourth visit were documented, but earlier suspected thefts were not.

Materials that Berger was examining were highly classified and included confidential memos, e-mails and handwritten notes from people at the highest levels of the Clinton administration.

The conventional wisdom is that Berger was removing material that would suggest that Clinton administration officials had received warnings regarding bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks. Not wanting to have the Clinton administration tainted in any way, the former National Security Adviser risked his reputation and, presumably, criminal prosecution to remove and destroy documents.

Berger's thefts are curious, because most people assume that both the Clinton and Bush administrations were privy to information that, at least in hindsight, could have focused more attention on al-Qaida and bin Laden.

Berger's thefts were brazen, and even bizarre. He made headlines after it was reported that he was observed stashing intelligence documents into his pants and socks. He also was seen hiding documents under a trailer at a construction site located near the National Archives.

For unexplained reasons, the Bush Justice Department agreed to a plea- bargain deal with Berger, who confessed to taking and destroying documents. The punishment, for the reduced misdemeanor crime of unauthorized removal of classified material, was just a $50,000 fine and 100 hours of community service.

Berger, who originally denied taking any classified documents, later admitted that he took five documents. He was never compelled to take a polygraph test to help determine the truth of his statements.

Whatever was in the classified material that Berger removed from the National Archives and destroyed seems a matter of far more import than who told a Washington newspaper columnist that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.

It is hard to imagine what was so important — or so potentially damaging — that Berger would risk his reputation, his status as a lawyer and even jail time to remove and destroy documents from the National Archives.

Without adequate security and surveillance at the Archives — or testimony under oath from Berger or other former Clinton officials — Americans will never know what he did or why he did it.