Word: contra
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After the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, Calif., gave front-page display to San Francisco's 1989 gay freedom-day parade, copy editor Bill Walter declared in a memo, "Bad things, disgusting things, inhuman things happen . . . But we don't have to describe every naked person, or show a photo of every dead body." The message was clear: "disgusting" things are better left off the front page. That is a dangerous mind-set for a journalist. Yet that spirit has permeated coverage of gay issues in general -- and of AIDS in particular...
...retired Navy admiral had walked the gangplank for his skipper in the 1987 congressional hearings, insisting that "the buck stops with me" in the Iran-contra affair. But once he faced trial on five charges of destroying documents and lying to Congress, John Poindexter switched signals and called Ronald Reagan as his star witness to share some responsibility for the Administration's secret policies to sell arms to Iran and assist the Nicaraguan contras. The former President failed to help his loyal National Security Adviser. Confused, forgetful and oblivious to the public record, Reagan would not even concede that Congress...
...Government payroll. Poindexter too was convicted of shredding a presidential finding and erasing 5,000 electronic messages (backup copies were discovered). But for the first time in the scandal, jurors were willing to sustain charges of a conspiracy to obstruct Congress and cover up the Iran-contra folly. "Admiral Poindexter did it because he wanted to protect the political viability of Ronald Reagan. And I consider that to be a selfish motive," Webb said after the verdict. No jury, of course, has been required to address the underlying constitutional question: To what extent can Congress limit a President in carrying...
...public record on Iran-contra, from the Tower commission to the congressional hearings and the various cases brought by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh, is incontestable on the key points: Reagan approved the weapons sales to Iran in the hope they would lead to the release of American hostages; he ordered that the contras be financed from private and foreign sources, even though Congress had expressed its opposition by cutting off U.S. funding. And he wanted both dealings kept secret from the American public...
Whether Reagan knew that jacked-up weapons prices had created profits that went to the contras, and whether he would have disapproved if he did know, are only peripheral uncertainties. Iran-contra, which violated laws and contradicted Reagan's proclaimed policies, was undeniably the President's doing...