Did Reagan-Bush delay the release of the hostages in Iran?

Great Debates
41

Sofa King’s rant merely confirms a theory that I’ve posted here numerous times: that Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan were very much alike. And the most interesting trait they share is this:

They almost always came out on top, and in the process, they made their enemies absolutely insane! Drooling, foaming-at-the-mouth, insane!

SofaKing’s ENTIRE thesis comes down to: Reagan and his cronies were evil, we KNOW they did bad things, we KNOW they made deals with Iranians, so… the so-called “October Surprise” is exactly the kind of thing they WOULD do. It’s exactly the kind of thing we’d expect from some evil people. And the complete lack of evidence only PROVES how diabolically clever they were.

Sofa, do you have any idea how much you sound like one of those right-wing “Hillary murdered Vince Foster” conspiracy theorists?

Even though Reagan has been out of office for over twelve years, left-wingers still loathe him as much as ever. It GALLS them that he left office with high approval ratings. It GALLS them that he’s still beloved. They STILL dream of undermining his legacy, by finding SOME new scandal that will destroy his image. The “October Surprise” theory is, in my opinion, just the latest delusion liberals want to embrace. If it’s true, after all, it would “prove” that Reagan was an aberration! It would “prove” he didn’t really deserve to win. It would “prove” that his entire administration was a fluke, based on deceit, and that the American people never REALLY embraced the conservatism he embodied.

And, of course, rabid conservatives will STILL be sifting through Travelgate/Monicagate/Vince Foster/Whitewater files twenty years from now, still convinced they can get Clinton locked up, if they just find that ONE crucial piece of evidence Ken Starr missed. That’s because, when rabid right-wingers look at Bill Clinton, they don’t see an individual: they see the pot-smoking, long-haired, 60s peacenik personified! So, it was never enough to try to beat him on matters of substance. It was essential to discredit Clinton and his whole generation.

Conservatives didn’t like Jimmy Carter, and liberals didn’t like Gerald Ford, but the venom directed at Reagan and Clinton was different. Conservatives always viewed Clinton as, somehow, illegitimate. And liberals felt the same way about Reagan. For die-hards, it wasn’t enough to try to beat Reagan or Clinton at the polls. It was essential to DESTROY them! But every effort to destroy either of them failed miserably.

Face it: Reagan and Clinton WON! They left office as beloved heroes, and left behind strong economies. If they DID do terrible things (highly dubious, in my opinion), they got away scot-free. Maybe they were brilliant politicians. Maybe they were just lucky enough to take office at a time when the economy was overdue for a strong rebound. Maybe they just had the good fortune to be charming, likeable guys, while their enemies looked like bullies and humorless fanatics.

But it’s over now. If you despise one of them (almost nobody despised both), get over it. They’re gone. And they’re NEVER going to get the comeuppance some people think they deserve.

42

Not necessarily.

I’m as liberal as they come, but I am not a fan of the Clintons.

HOWEVER, what galls me about Reagan was his naivety, his gung ho warmongering, the autrocities committed in third world countries in his name.

43

Now to jump in and help Sofa King out:

Not at all. Yeah, he certainly did use subsequent events to bolster his argument in a way that I would guess would be inadmissable in court (IANAL), but that does honestly try to show how the same pattern appears in each. He also presents some evidence that meetings did occur, and that the occurence of these meetings cannot be disproved with the information available to us.

Of course, there is not nearly enough to prove anything, but the fact that Reagan’s advisors did meet with Iranian officials and could not remember what was discussed is certainly suspicious. Personally, I don’t think that Reagan would have delayed the release of the hostages, as he seems to have been motivated by doing what was in America’s best interest, regardless of the morality of it. (i.e. sure, he’s been known to do some despicable things, but only out of a misguided ideology, not for personal gain)

44

astorian said:

Yep, so much so that I considered mentioning it. Instead, I wussed out and merely lamented that the accusation cannot be proven. If the October Suprise could have been proven, someone far smarter and (possibly) more foamy at the mouth than I would have already done it.

Let me be clear: I know men set foot on the moon. I think it’s possible that Republicans secretly negotiated to delay the release of the Embassy hostages until after the election. Furthermore, I think that such a thing fits in quite nicely with the prior and later dirty tricks and subversions of the law that we know happened. But that don’t make it so.

Freedom asked for a shred of evidence, and I gave him the evidence I’ve seen, which admittedly ain’t much. I also tried to explain why the debate is largely unresolveable.

Nevertheless, I feel I have advanced the argument somewhat more than you credit me. You want proof that members of the Reagan campaign secretly met with Iranians before the election? I just gave it to you. You want eyewitnesses and sworn testimony from the Republicans involved? I gave you that, too.

I also gave you more eyewitness testimony about other meetings which are missing the admissions of those Republicans who were accused of being involved, but which include details of what was discussed.

I pointed out the pot/kettle type of attack that is being used to discredit those eyewitnesses, and I thought I showed other examples of flawed logic that those who would deny that this incident happened are attempting to use in the defense of people we know did similar things later on down the road.

But I didn’t prove that the hostages stayed in Iran because of Republican machinations, and I thought I pointed that out, too. If I didn’t say it above, I’m saying it now.

That doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t kick the thing around. It’s fun!

My beef with the Reagan legacy is best discussed elsewhere. Suffice to say that it has a helluva lot to do with the very type of thing being batted about here, except that it cannot be so casually brushed aside.