Tactical Unclarity in the Attacks on Sandy Berger

Um, look:

(1) N put x in his pants

can mean that:

(2) N put x in his pants pocket

But it is more ordinarily used to mean:

(3) N stuffed x down into the main part of his pants, past the waist band.

I kept hearing people say things about Berger having the form of (1), and, like most other people, interpreted that to mean something haveing the form of (3). If, however, the charge is that he did something describable by a proper substitution instance of (2), then that's what people should say.

I don't know what' s going on here, but if someone is accused of illegally putting something in his pocket, you shouldn't say that the charge is that he illegally stuffed it down his pants. To put it like (3) when what allegedly happend is like (2) is, basically, to lie about what happened. It's to try to add a taint of perversion (or something like it) to the charges.

Needless to say, however, if he did stuff the papers into his pants rather than his pants pockets, then it's o.k.--in fact, obligatory--to say so.