Word: iran-contra
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...deserved to take over the White House after 1988. They made a bravura start, quickly passing a clean-water bill over the President's veto and approving the $88 billion highway bill over another Reagan veto. The Republicans, shell-shocked by the midterm election loss and defensive over the Iran-contra affair, were reduced to the role of helpless spectators...
Last week an outside agitator stepped forward and concentrated congressional attention. The unlikely catalyst: Ronald Reagan, who had resolutely ignored Congress's budget dilemma after his own spending plan had been rejected by both Democrats and Republicans. Returning from a humdrum summit in Venice and limping from the continuing Iran-contra revelations, the President was looking for a quick score. So Reagan did what he does best: he took to the airwaves and attacked the old "tax and tax, spend and spend" ways of the Democrats. The assault pushed Byrd and House Speaker Jim Wright into hurried meetings with their...
Despite that heartfelt declaration to Congress last December, Marine Lieut. Colonel Oliver North has now twice refused to answer their questions about his pivotal role in the Iran-contra affair. North first invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before the House Foreign Affairs Committee; last week the former National Security Council aide showed no interest in testifying privately to investigators of the congressional select committees probing the scandal...
...Americans would concern themselves more with morality and worry less about the sexual behavior of their politicians, they would impeach Reagan for the Iran-contra arms sale and forgive Gary Hart his venial sins...
...Iran-contra mess has been more complex and difficult for Americans to follow than the Watergate tragedy, but according to New Jersey Congressman Peter Rodino, the newer scandal illustrates a similar "arrogance of power." Rodino knows the subject better than most; he chaired the House Judiciary Committee that voted articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon. No similar threat imperils Ronald Reagan, and there are many differences between the two events. Still, as the hearings demonstrated, the Iran-contra misdeeds in some ways are more far-reaching in their implications, placing U.S. foreign policy in the hands of private citizens...