Word: iran-contra
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...Carter, a really bad president, so intensely that he will forever be remembered as really, really bad. Bush, also a really bad president, would like at least to be considered merely bad. American presidents can't help but make history, and the knowledge that his grandchildren will read about Iran-Contra, wonder why their grandfather did nothing to encourage Iraqi restraint before the Gulf War, and bear the brunt of borrow-and-spend economics probably bothers Bush...
...same reason--a desire for historians' esteem--motivated a less praiseworthy decision. Bush granted six Iran-contra defendants--one of whom was former secretary of defense and current perjurer Caspar W. Weinberger '38--executive clemency on Christmas Eve. Whether their actions were right or wrong didn't matter, he maintained, because the six were patriots, and it's wrong punish people for loving their country. Of course, that the pardons prevented six sticky trials which would have likely reveal the extent of Bush's participation in the scandals probably contributed to the outgoing president's decision. He could...
GEORGE BUSH HAS BEEN BUSY LATELY TIDYING UP his presidency for the history books. But his decision to grant pardons to six Iran-contra defendants may have the opposite effect. If anything, Bush's Christmas Eve gift is likely to make historians more curious than ever about his own role in the scandal -- especially in view of independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's charge that the President has withheld "highly relevant" Iran-contra notes...
...former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who was awaiting trial in January. The President also absolved former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams and three ex-CIA officials: Duane Clarridge, Alan Fiers and Clair George. Conspicuously absent from Bush's list were other Iran-contra defendants, including Richard Secord, deemed by the President to have gained financially from the affair...
Walsh, whose six-year Iran-contra investigation has cost more than $32 million, and who is still working on a final report to Congress, was asked if the pardons meant that government officials are above the law. "That," replied the prosecutor, "depends on the President you work...