Jay Nordlinger, of the National Review, on hypocrisy:
I had a memory: It was of Ronald Reagan and his dealing with the hostage situation in Lebanon. An AP reporter was held captive there — name of Terry Anderson. He had a sister named Peggy Say, and she became kind of a spokeswoman for the hostages’ families. Every day, she’d be out in front of the White House, sockin’ it to Reagan, saying how he was hard-hearted and callous and rigid and all the rest of it. And the media were in broad agreement with this. Reagan had a ridiculously inflexible position: No negotiations with terrorists.
But, lo, it was revealed that Reagan was a softie, that he was, indeed, flexible, that he was engaged in some maneuvering to free those hostages, so concerned was he about the individuals’ fates.
And the media (along with the rest of the Left)? They turned on a dime. Now they were super-principled about terrorists. Now any dealing for the release of those hostages was a travesty and an outrage.
Is Nordlinger honestly and truly trying to say that the President should have the authority to secretly cut deals rewarding terrorists? It appears that he is.
I can’t honestly say that I remember the attitude of the media regarding the hostage situation in Lebanon before Iran-Contra broke. I have a better recollection of the Iran-Contra scandal, or as Nordlinger prefers to call it, “some manuvering.”
Members of the Reagan Administration secretly sold arms to Iran, in contradiction to stated U.S. policy and in possible violation of arms-control agreement, in exchange for American nationals who had been kidnapped by pro-Iranian terrorist groups in Lebanon. The terrorists learned that the kidnapping Americans could lead to fabulous prizes. That is what appeasement looks like, and the reason that it’s bad policy should be obvious.
Some of the proceeds were funneled to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. In an article about John Negroponte, the newly-nominated ambassador to Iraq and former point-man on the Contras, Matthew Yglesias writes:
As the CIA, which oversaw the Contra operation, eventually admitted, the rebel force “engaged in kidnapping, extortion, and robbery to fund its operations.” Wishing to avoid combat with the Nicaraguan army, it became, in essence, a terrorist group, attacking civilian targets in an effort to disrupt Nicaragua’s economy and society.”
The independent counsel concluded that:
the sales of arms to Iran contravened United States Government policy and may have violated the Arms Export Control Act1
the provision and coordination of support to the contras violated the Boland Amendment ban on aid to military activities in Nicaragua;
the policies behind both the Iran and contra operations were fully reviewed and developed at the highest levels of the Reagan Administration;
although there was little evidence of National Security Council level knowledge of most of the actual contra-support operations, there was no evidence that any NSC member dissented from the underlying policykeeping the contras alive despite congressional limitations on contra support;
the Iran operations were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, and national security advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John M. Poindexter; of these officials, only Weinberger and Shultz dissented from the policy decision, and Weinberger eventually acquiesced by ordering the Department of Defense to provide the necessary arms; and
large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials.
following the revelation of these operations in October and November 1986, Reagan Administration officials deliberately deceived the Congress and the public about the level and extent of official knowledge of and support for these operations.
In addition, Independent Counsel concluded that the off-the-books nature of the Iran and contra operations gave line-level personnel the opportunity to commit money crimes.
The Iran-Contra scandal led to 14 indictments (two overturned on appeal) and 11 convictions. (The first President Bush pardoned seven of them.) The independent counsel was appointed by Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese, not the media.
Reagan himself apologized for it. On March 4, 1987, he said,
A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that’s true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower Board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind. There are reasons why it happened, but no excuses. It was a mistake.
I can’t even pretend to believe that Nordlinger is serious about this. Let’s pretend that he’s being honest at the beginning- that “the media” pilloried Reagan because they thought that “no negotiations with terrorists” was ridiculously inflexible. He seems to believe that the media should have smiled at all of Iran-Contra, because doing otherwise would be hypocritical.
I haven’t made my disrespect for National Review much of a secret, but this is just a joke.
{ 28 comments }
Jim Henley 04.21.04 at 6:31 pm
I just had the weirdest thought. Background: I was a partisan, New Republic-style Dem in the 1980s. I despised the Reagan Administration over Iran-Contra, especially the arms for hostages part. And I hated the fact that by making the deals they made, they’d just provided an incentive for further kidnappings – now terrorists all over the world would know that the way you get what you want from the US is to nab its nationals and make demands. The Reagan Administration opened the floodgates to a veritable tide of coerced traffic in American citizens.
In retrospect, there’s only one problem with my analysis. It seems significant.
Robert Lyman 04.21.04 at 6:36 pm
Ted,
This is why hypocricy is such a lame thing to talk about in politics.
I’m far to young to remember the media attitude towards the hostages, or the scandal. But if the media were being hypocrites, that’s a legitimate thing for Nordlinger to complain about. Kind of like the complaints that the NYT simultaneously decries post-Sept. 11 anti-terror actions and criticizes Bush for not taking every “conceiveable” action to prevent it. I mean, really, which way should Bush go? It’s stupid and unfair, and deserves to be criticized.
I don’t know what Nordlinger thinks about Iran-Contra, but the point of his article was to criticize the Left for opportunism and inconsistency, not defend Reagan.
Suppose you wrote a piece saying, say, that justice Scalia was failing to stick to the original intent of the Constitution, as he often says justices should. Could I then put up this sort of “gotcha” article: “TED BARLOW DEFENDS ORIGINALISM!” That wouldn’t be fair, would it?
Chris Martin 04.21.04 at 6:41 pm
Sorry to sound like a prig but it’s spelled “hypocrisy”.
bryan 04.21.04 at 6:52 pm
I would like to priggishly observe that “I had a memory” is not the proper way to say “I recall when”.
Carlos 04.21.04 at 6:57 pm
Jim, if you’re thinking that the perverse incentive for hostages thing _stopped_, you’re sadly mistaken.
mon 04.21.04 at 6:59 pm
I don’t know what Nordlinger thinks about Iran-Contra, but the point of his article was to criticize the Left for opportunism and inconsistency, not defend Reagan.
Well, Robert, but the very fact the article doesn’t tell you a thing about what he thinks of the Iran-Contra and is only concerned to talk about the left’s hypocrisy is the most outrageous thing!
By completely and unashamedly putting aside that little detail that the Reagan administration was indeed trading arms with terrorists, the article is turning into opportunism and inconsistency what was simple obvious observation of a matter of fact.
I only recall bits of that period and that scandal, but what I recall most is that it was huge and real and not some political controversy as the NRO would have it. Just in order to reiterate the original concept that the left is truly nasty they’re engaging in full-on revisionism whereby the Iran-Contras thingy never existed in the first place but was only a matter for the left wing to crucify Reagan about.
Bloody hell, it’s so unbelievably shameless it’s funny. Then again it’s the NRO so nothing new.
Ted Barlow 04.21.04 at 7:01 pm
Rob,
I can see your viewpoint re: Times v. Bush, but I still think Nordlinger’s point is indefensible with regards to Reagan. If Reagan had just cut a relatively benign deal with the terrorists to get the hostages, and the weight of press shifted from being for negotation to being against negotiation, then he’d have a point. But in fact, “negotiations” consisted of a morass of illegal activity and cover-ups, and the press would have to react to that.
Absurd exaggeration for the point of illustration: Let’s say that the weight of opinion in the press is saying that Bush is a tool of the Saudis. Let’s say that Bush sends a massive nuclear strike against Saudi Arabia, killing millions and destroying the holy city of Islam. The weight of opinion in the press would probably be that Bush had acted badly. Even though Bush would have convincingly demonstrated that he was not a tool of the Saudis, I’d have a hard time with folks who called the press hypocritical. They have the right to react to the nuclear strike.
Jim,
I thought the same thing in the 80s. Thank God we were both wrong, huh? It still doesn’t make it right, and we still, as a matter of policy, don’t negotiate with terrorists. There’s a reason Reagan apologized for the narrow offense of trading arms for hostages- it’s a horrible idea with unknowable consequences.
Chris: Good point. Sorry.
Robert Lyman 04.21.04 at 7:01 pm
As long as we’re being bitchy about grammer, spelling, etc, I’d like to point out that in American usage (and Ted’s American, so why not follow those rules?), the period goes inside the quotation marks.
We now return to actual substantive commentary…
John Isbell 04.21.04 at 7:04 pm
“Is Nordlinger honestly and truly trying to say that the President should have the authority to secretly cut deals rewarding terrorists? It appears that he is.”
I’d wager substantial sums that he isn’t. He saying that *a Republican* President should have that authority, particularly when actually caught doing it and with no better excuse to hand.
Matt Weiner 04.21.04 at 7:11 pm
Robert, I went back to Nordlinger’s argument to see if the context supported your interpretation, but there wasn’t any context at all. He’s randomly connecting liberals current desire to be tough on terrorism with protests against the Patriot Act–a pre-9/11 Justice Dept. wish list with little to do with terrorism. Then, with no transition whatsoever, he starts on about Iran-Contra.
He doesn’t provide any evidence that anyone on the Left thought, before the scandal broke, that we should’ve negotiated with the hostages. (Peggy Say, as he points out, remained consistent.) Many people on the Left were outraged by the multiple violations of law that Ted describes, but that’s not hypocritical.
So what is his point? Beats me. But he hasn’t got any evidence of past or present Leftist hypocrisy, and describing a higl-level criminal operation as “some maneuvering” seems pretty egregious, especially as the Contra part had nothing to do with any hostage-freeing.
Robert Lyman 04.21.04 at 7:19 pm
Ted,
You’re right that the substantive scope of Reagan’s actions is an important consideration, and I might as well be clear that I think Reagan was bad on terrorism: withdrawing the Marines from Lebannon, arms-for-hostages, etc.
I suppose it all depends on the nature of the press response: was it framed in terms of “excessive reward for terrorists” or in terms of “any reward at all for terrorists”? Which question we can’t possibly answer. So it’s pointless to debate.
I think Nordlinger chose a bad example (OK, a REALLY bad example). But his principal point–which was NYT v. Bush–withstands the destruction of his example. And I’d be much more interested in your (possibly contrarian) take on the main point than on this one.
Ted Barlow 04.21.04 at 7:20 pm
Rob,
I should mention that I thoroughly agree with you that hypocrisy is a lame thing to argue about in politics. It doesn’t get us anywhere.
Having said that, I know that I could be found out within fifteen seconds as someone who has accused my political opponents of hypocrisy. So, so meta.
Ted Barlow 04.21.04 at 7:28 pm
I’ll try to address that. Feel free to email me about it if I overlook it.
JRoth 04.21.04 at 7:31 pm
Robert-
Your example about wanting to stop 9-11 while questioning the Patriot Act being hypocrisy is another strawman on parade.
If Bush were curious, engaged, and aware of the real threats to American security in the summer of 2001, his response to the 8-6 PDB would have been to demand that his Secretaries “shake the trees” for leads. This very easily could have led the FBI to approve a search warrant for Massaoui’s laptop, which contained Atta’s phone number. This step alone could have led to the prevention of 9-11. No civil libertarian on earth would have opposed the FBI looking at Massaoui’s laptop. And the Patriot Act did nothing to make that warrant easier to get.
The only hypocrisy is in suggesting that asking the president to do part of his job (protect America from attacks) is inconsistent with asking him to do another part of his job (protect the Constitution from abuse).
Oh, and Republicans have NEVER admitted that illegally rewarding terrorists in one part of the world in order to fund them in another part of the world was in any way problematic, much less illegal. Witness Ollie North’s career. Any American who feels safer with a Republican in the White House is a fool.
Robert Lyman 04.21.04 at 7:40 pm
No civil libertarian on earth would have opposed the FBI looking at Massaoui’s laptop.
Well, someone opposed it, and I find it awfully hard to think that Bush could have changed that with a vague, general instruction to “shake trees.” Can’t you just see that conversation?
Agent X: We don’t have probable cause to search this laptop.
Agent Y: Didn’t you hear? We’re supposed to be shaking trees! Bush says so!
Agent X: Well, when we go to “tree shaking” mode, the Constitutional standard for probably cause gets lowered, so now we do have probable cause after all! Let’s search it and arrest everyone whose phone number is stored there!
And I have to wonder about the effectiveness of any law-enforcement operation that needs a vague, unfocused order from the President to do its damn job. Does any cop ever fail to make an arrest because the Chief hasn’t issued a foliage vibration memo in the last week?
But this thread is now careening out of control…
bob mcmanus 04.21.04 at 8:16 pm
Two points in the article:
1) Press is unfair to Republicans
2) Press was inconsistent,reversed positions, flip-flop, flip-flop.
This is about Kerry, and electing Bush.
Republican wakes in the morning, thinks “Here are the campaign themes, and I have to write an article about “x””. How can I work the themes in?
Look for it.
Harry Tuttle 04.21.04 at 9:03 pm
Nordlinger seems to be suffering under a typical wingnut malady called absurd absolutism.
The Patriot Act and its commensurate suspension of civil liberties is not the one and only way to be tough on terrorism just as illegally funneling arms to Iran was not the only way to deal with the hostage situation.
Both of those examples are, in my opinion and legally, the wrong way to deal with their respective difficulties.
It’s like somebody saying you can’t bitch about your favorite striker skying a ball a dozen metres over the goal when you were urging him to shoot.
He took a shot didn’t he? Yea, but it was a shitty shot.
All that said, can anyone even imagine Bush II apologizing like Reagan did?
Chris Martin 04.21.04 at 9:07 pm
Robert,
I know that the period usually comes inside the quotation marks. In this case I was not using quotation marks to quote someone but to mark a word that is being mentioned rather than used. Hence I put the period outside. That’s just my personal style and I’m sure you’ll find style guides that disagree.
-Chris
Justin 04.21.04 at 9:16 pm
My big question for hypocrisy:
The left press said there was no coalition and now they say the coalition is falling apart? Which is it?
Mark 04.21.04 at 9:22 pm
Cite?
luke weiger 04.22.04 at 7:30 am
Justin,
A once small and unimpressive coalition is now falling apart. That was pretty easy.
Sandals 04.22.04 at 11:05 am
As I recall:
Bush: We have a “Coalition of the Willing”.
Left: Your so-called ‘coalition’ consists mostly of England and states you bribed into supporting us, and is dangerously fragile. The term is obviously supposed to evoke comparisons with the Gulf War’s Coalition, but it doesn’t even qualify.
Hmmm..
Nat Whilk 04.22.04 at 3:30 pm
A once small and unimpressive coalition is now falling apart.
Countries supplying what percentage of the coalition troops have dropped out?
Robert Lyman 04.22.04 at 3:55 pm
At the risk of taking this thread still further off course, could somebody please tell me what civil liberties have been suspended, and what part of the Constitution is violated, by the Patriot Act?
When you answer, please provide citations to sections of the Act, or better, the U.S. Code, as well as citations to the U.S. Constitution. I regret that I cannot take vague assertions disconnected from the text of the law seriously.
It may well be that the Patriot Act was a bad idea. I certainly didn’t like the haste with which it was passed. But given that part of the reason law enforcement “didn’t do enough” before Sept. 11 was that they were legally forbidden to do some things, it seems that some kind of reform was in order.
Ginger Yellow 04.22.04 at 10:39 pm
From a European (UK actually) perspective, this conversation seems very strange. The reprehensible thing (for Europeans) about Iran-Contra wasn’t negotiating with Iranian terrorists to release hostages. Or even doing so secretly. This sort of thing goes on all the time – the UK does it, France does it, Israel does it. The problem was selling arms to those terrorists, and using the funds from the sales to finance another terrorist campaign in Nicaragua against the express wishes of Congress. That’s several orders of magnitude worse, especially in a democracy that espouses human rights. The clearest sign of the moral bankruptcy of the current administration is the promotion to high office of several Iran-Contra convicts. And its a reflection of how low political discourse has sunk in the US that they can get away with it. Not to mention Otto Reich.
Seriously, if Kerry wants to take the fight to Bush on “Homeland Security”, all he has to do is point out that Bush’s cabinet is stuffed with proven (often convicted) terrorist financiers and sympathisers. Abrams, Reich, Negroponte, Poindexter. These people should be in Guantanamo, not government. He could also mention that it was Bush’s dad who pardoned so many of them.
Keith M Ellis 04.23.04 at 12:58 am
Robert, I eschew that American convention because A) it’s an arbitrary typographical artifact that is no longer relevant; and, B) it creates ambiguity.
I return you now to your normal comment thread.
JRoth 04.23.04 at 4:15 am
Robert-
Do you know what a priority is? It’s what people use to determine which actions to take when they have limited resources but (virtually) unlimited options. In organizations, the bosses set the priorities. So, let’s say you’re a cop. You have leads on 3 cases: a drug deal, a prostitution ring, and a gangster. Your boss asks you, “Any leads on drugs or prostitution?” Which is the career-advancing answer? A. “Right on it, Boss. I’m staking out the whore and the junkie, and tonight we should make the busts.” or B. “Um, no. I’ve put all my manpower on this other thing. I think it’s really important, even though you don’t.”
In case you don’t know, that someone who opposed Rowley’s warrant request was Spike Bowman of the FBI, who got a raise and a framed commendation from George Bush at the end of 2002 for “exceptional performance.” You think Spike is in the ACLU? Or maybe he was just more focused on his boss’s priorities?
Is it really so hard to understand why an administration that put zero priority on terrorism would be ineffective at fighting terrorism? No one has argued since Massaoui’s laptop became a known quantity that it could only have been searched with a “lowered Constitutional standard.” That’s your strawman. As Dick Cheney said in a different context, the Bush administration simply had “different priorities” before 9-11.
Robert Lyman 04.23.04 at 7:26 pm
jroth,
You may or may not be right about the Bush admin. putting “zero” priority on terrorism; I’m inclined to think you’re wrong.
But it is certainly clear in hindsight that they put inadequate emphasis on it.
However, the question is not “Did Bush put inadequate emphasis on terrorism,” which answer is plainly “yes,” but rather, “Was the Bush adminstration unreasonably lax in its pursuit of terrorism, given all the other things going on at that time?” That is, was Bush focused, on, say, domestic extremists (McVeigh types), despite dramatically more evidence that bin Laden was the real issue?
And that question is not easy to answer. Bush presumably get 365 PDBs a year–he can’t demand tree-shaking for every single one.
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