Iran-Contra: A Smashing Success

Jonathan Schwarz directs us to Sam Husseini's trip down memory lane:

Killing the Constitution:
How I Became a Radical Twenty Years Ago Today

Many think they now see through the Democrats' complicity with the Bush administration's illegal wars and unconstitutional actions. If they think this is new, they don't know that half of it.

Exactly twenty years ago today, on July 13, 1987, I witnessed the Democratic Party establishment covering up -- and therefore helping -- the subversion of the U.S. Constitution. It was actually on national TV, but few seemed to care.

The Iran-Contra hearings were going on. I watched them almost in their entirety, had just graduated from college and wasn't sure what I wanted to do, so I spent time with my dad, who'd just been diagnosed with a severe heart condition and we watched much of the hearings together.

For a while, I was admiring of the co-chairs of the Iran-Contra committee, the Democrats Sen. Daniel Inouye and Rep. Lee Hamilton -- who would go on to co-head the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Commission.

But, following events closely, it became clear Inouye and Hamilton were covering things up. This became glaring on July 13, 1987 when the following exchange took place as Rep. Jack Brooks, a Democrat from Texas, questioned Oliver North:

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The liberal lemmings at Daily KOS, Americablog, and Salon.com continue to pin responsibility for our post-Constitutional nation society on Bush, Cheney, the GOP and Joe Lieberman - even as The Senate voted this week to lay the groundwork for another global atrocity of collective punishment, this time against the people of Iran. The amendment to the defense spending bill requires David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker to produce a report every sixty days on Iranian involvement in Iraq. Not one Senator voted against it.

When Kevin Hayden of The American Street asks Didn’t these guys learn anything since their October 2002 vote?, I am compelled to break down the lesson learned by the DNC Luminaries in Congress:

Yes, Dems in Congress - including the slate of presidential wannabe’s - have definitely learned something: The Democratic rank & file doesn’t have the guts, conscience or foresight to punish the party for any - and I do mean ANY - breaches of the public trust. No matter how frequently Democrats at the national level betray their oaths - whether the end result is illegal domestic spying, stocking the federal bench with fascists, adopting torture as a policy, or slaughtering, wounding and displacing a million people on the far side of the world - the Democratic Faithful will show up at the ballot box to reward them for their shameful cowardice and complicity. Subsequently, said voters - having expressed the required degree of indignation - will categorically reject even the tiniest shred of responsibility for what transpired previously and the horrors to come.

That’s what the Democrats have learned: That there are no consequences for swearing their allegiance to the militarial industrial complex and media which work hand-in-hand to deny the public of any role in government.

Guess it’s time to write a letter to the editor again. Sign another petition. Call my representative to express my displeasure. That should fix it!

The American political system is irrepairably broken. Until there are consequences for those who continue propping up the empire with wave after wave of propaganda, death and destruction, Americans - including those who conjure excuse after excuse for the most basic breaches of human decency committed in our name - have no right whatsoever to throw around words like "freedom" and "democracy." That they will continue to do so without the slightest sense of irony, much less guilt, is more evidence of the extent to which our national character has been corrupted.