Word: iran-contra
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That feeling of serenity, though diluted by a variety of concerns, is part of the foundation of Reagan's political trifecta: his re-election in 1984, his personal recovery from the trough of the Iran-contra scandal and his final vindication at the polls last November. Not since the Roosevelt-Truman era has either party won three consecutive presidential elections. Not even the popular Eisenhower had the pleasure of escorting his designated heir to the Capitol...
Liberals still fulminate about the so-called Teflon factor that ostensibly insulated Reagan from the penalties for his weaknesses and mistakes. This complaint ignores some large facts. No Teflon protected Reagan's approval rating during the 1981-82 recession or the Iran-contra debacle. Moreover, commentators have shouted themselves hoarse warning about the dangers of the budget deficits...
Reagan went into his second term with a lackluster cadre of close advisers determined to "let Reagan be Reagan." The energy level dropped, and so did the level of expertise. Only after the traumas of the Republicans' 1986 loss of the Senate and the Iran-contra scandal upset the chessboard did Reagan put effective knights into play again. But he had lost two precious years in the interim, and with them the initiative in dealing with accumulating problems...
Reagan had an ability to console the inconsolable. Witness his speech after the Challenger explosion. He could also explain away the inexplicable. Remember Bitburg? The Iran-Contra scam...
Ever since the fiasco first popped into the headlines in 1986, millions of Americans have awaited a full exposition of the Iran-contra affair. They whetted their palates with appetizers from the Tower commission and sat with rapt attention through 13 weeks of televised congressional hearings, confident they were experiencing only a first course of the full meal that would follow when special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh brought Lieut. Colonel Oliver North and three alleged co-conspirators to trial...