A quick primer on Iran Contra

The other day, our president made some unfortunate remarks while in Israel. Then John McCain said something even worse, because he doesn't get to use the excuse that most people already think he is an idiot.

A very detailed analysis of this is available on Old Man McCain.

I just wanted to take the time to add a little more context on Iran/Contra for some of the younger readers who may not have a first hand recollection of it.

I could try to sort out the complicated details of this complicated mess. Or I could just let Seth MacFarlane do it for me. This is the American Dad take on Iran/Contra



Best line = "But Congress stopped the Contra money flow, just because they moved teeny bit of blow."

As you can see, something bad happened, it looked like it was so bad that it would get on the President, and a fall guy stepped up to take the heat. The words "plausible deniability" were thrown around, and nothing ever really stuck to Reagan.

Here is the Saturday Night Live classic - Reagan the Mastermind
(Please excuse the ad at the beginning. I couldn't find this on YouTube, so this comes from Hulu.)



Best exchange = Reporter - Some may wonder what was worse, your knowing, or your not knowing.

Reagan - Well, all I can say is, I didn't know. And, well, we're trying to find out what happened, because none of us know.

Two reasons why this matters now, in 2008.

1 - Reagan claimed he didn't know about Iran/Contra. He got away with it. Bush claims he didn't know the pretext for the invasion of Iraq was based on lies. He has been getting away with this. It should stop.

2 - McCain believes he can say nonsense like "[Reagan] didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran" and those of us who know better will give him a pass. This should also stop.

So now that you are armed with a brief education on Iran/Contra, it is time to start calling McCain out on this B.S.