No One Should Be Sad When George H.W. Bush Dies (Probably Soon)

[YoungDemCA]

16. Let's not forget Daddy Bush's signature role in Iran-Contra and covering that up

Obstructing justice, lying to investigators, etc. Oh, and he pardoned basically everyone involved once he became President.

On the role of George Herbert Walker Bush, Mixter reported that the Vice President’s “knowledge of the Iran Initiative appears generally to have been coterminous with that of President Reagan.” Indeed, on the Iran-Contra operations overall, “it is quite clear that Mr. Bush attended most (although not quite all) of the key briefings and meetings in which Mr. Reagan participated, and therefore can be presumed to have known many of the Iran/Contra facts that the former President knew.”

The first President Bush had publicly portrayed himself as “out-of-the-loop” on both the Iran and Contra operations—and indeed had fostered that image of innocence throughout the 1988 presidential campaign. The 89-page Mixter report is nothing less than a chronicle of mendacity on Bush’s part. The report reveals for the first time that in 1983, Bush chaired a secret “Special Situation Group” that had “recommended specific covert operations” including “the mining of Nicaragua’s rivers and harbors.” Between 1984 and 1986, he attended no less than a dozen meetings at which illicit assistance to the contras was discussed.

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/25/the_iran_contra_scandal_25_years_later/

The Reagan-Bush administration's biggest defender in Congress at the time? Dick Cheney.

Did Bush select Cheney as Secretary of Defense in his administration as a reward/payback/returning him the favor of helping him (and other Reagan administration officials for that matter, including Reagan himself) avoid criminal prosecution? Quite possibly, IMHO.

Furthermore, did Cheney learn valuable lessons from Iran-Contra about how much criminal activity, abuse of power, and obstruction of justice one can get away with at the highest levels of power? Most definitely.