European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 28, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns Jim Fain the stars and stripes Friday october 28,19b8 Bush s role in Iran arms Deal mostly ignored Hows this for a political Riddle the furlough of Willie Morton is a major Issue in the presidential Campaign. The betrayal of american Honor and National interests in the iranian arms Deal is Seldom mentioned. Michael Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts when Horton committed a heinous rape and assault while free on a furlough program launched by a re publican predecessor. Dukakis accepted responsibility and changed the program. George Bush was vice president and chairman of the anti terrorism task Force when we undertook to ran som hostages by shipping arms to the Ayatollah. He was Clad about being out of the Loop then admitted knowing of the shipments but denied he knew at the time they were intended As Ransom. Even so he conceded his main interest was in get Ting those hostages Cut of there especially a Cia station chief who was being tortured and subsequently died. The overwhelming evidence is that Bush knew the intimate details of the operation and lied about it. He was in virtually every National Security briefing during the period. He seems remarkably inattentive at limes but not that dumb. Public opinion polls show most people think he s lying. Yet we appear to be on the verge of electing him president. Under the Constitution a president has next to nothing to do with criminal Laws and punishment. They arc the responsibility of the slates and courts. He has almost everything to do with foreign policy. The foolish amateurish and shameful Effort to Ransom hos tages in which we were repeatedly snookered was carried out at the direction of president Reagan who had proclaimed we would never do such a thing and who lied repeatedly about it when caught. While attempting to cloak his advisory role under executive privilege. Bush has admitted he generally supported the plan but claims he expressed reservations about Israel s leading role in the Early phases and about what might happen if the affair became Public. He tries now to Dodge la Issue but when cornered still claims he did not know until three weeks after it became Public that its main thrust was to Ransom hos tages an Issue that had become an obsession with Rea Gan after his first face to face exposure with their Fame George f. Will undoubtedly profits from the Public s love affair with Reagan. We lend to forgive the personable old gip Crany sin especially now that he s on the layout. Its difficult to exempt the president and fault his yes Man for deeds mainly committed by the Boss How Ever much Bush May have cheered him on. Like Dan Quayle Bush is helped too by the unpopularity of the Media who have Bird dogged the hostage Story especially by hit Yelling match with Dan rather in a television interview. All the players in this shameful business got a break when the White House Public relations staff expertly shifted the focus from the Ransom which was clearly Reagan a to the Contra fund diversion which no one Ever was Able to pin directly on Reagan. Con Gress bit badly for that one. Dukakis has tried without much skill to make the Iran affair an Issue. Blame his ineptitude with some of Bush s free ride. Nevertheless the episode and the wesseling that Fol Lowed it offer telling insights into Bush s character his Flimsy Ness his Lack of integrity his total absence of Honor. He is that Man. And we Cher republicans fee sacrifice justified Hartford Conn. Come through the looking Glass into the wonderland of Connecticut s Senate race. Candidate a praised . Act offs in Libya Grenada and the persian Gulf questioned the restraints the War Powers act places on presidents denounced Castro As More of a marxist Leninist than Gorbachev endorsed the Gramm Rudman deficit reduction plan and praised the nomination of Robert Bork. Candidate b denounced the . Bombing of Libya As a Gutter act called the invasion of Grenada worse than any recent soviet act revered the War Powers act praised Castro s enor Mous intellect and idealism opposed not Only the Bork nomination but also that of William Rehnquist to be chief Justice opposed ski Contra Aid Gramm Rudman spending restraints and criticized Connecticut s Republican 1986 Senate nominee for criticizing the democratic incumbent s liberalism. Candidate a is attorney general Joseph Lieberman the Democrat. Candi Date b is the Republican incumbent seeking a fourth term sen. Lowell Weicker. Suddenly it seems possible that Wicker s scat until recently presumed Safe May be yanked from beneath him with Many republicans helping with the yanking. In 1970, Wick or slipped into the sen ate by winning just 42 percent of the vote in a three Way race in which a second Democrat ran As an Independent. In 1976, Riding a watergate wave Weicker honed his grandstanding skills on the watergate committee he won 58 per cent against a poorly financed Democrat. In 1982 he won 50 percent against a democratic opponent of lebanese extraction whose extreme liberalism divided the democratic party and whose views on the Middle East drove away jewish voters. The Democrat got 46 percent a minor candidate 4 percent today the democratic parly is United behind a jewish candidate. Polls Over the last eight months show a steeply de Clining trend line for Weicker support. His agitated performance in a recent de Bate belied his professed disbelief in polls showing the race even. Because of actions taken when republicans controlled the slate legislature this will be Connecticut s first statewide election without a straight party line lever on voting machines. This will Stim ulate ticket splitting to Wicker s disadvantage while Bush carries Connecticut. By preening As a Maverick motivated by principle Wick or has catered to Connecticut s Independent Streak. My party he says sonorous by is the Slat of but Connecticut s interests probably suffer because when he tends to Appeal on its behalf to Collegia feelings the appeals fall on ears deafened by his noisy moral exhibitionism that has made him one of the least liked senators. Connecticut does Well from defense spending but this is because of industries dating to world War ii and uneven older tradition. As Michael Barone writes Connecticut has always been a slate of tinkerers and innovators where people have worked with vast ingenuity and unusual in produced Eli Whitney s Cotton Gin and his Rifle made of interchangeable components Coll industries Sikorski helicopters Pratt and Whitney Jet engines and United technologies. The contrasting i elegance of Weick or whose rhetoric has been described As communication skills indigenous 10 a Junior High school playground is illustrated by his analysis of the 1938 Republican platform i think the platform of the intellectual idealist Cas Tro Weicker says "1 saw what he has done with my own eyes. By Caribbean standards it s Park however Castro has been known to Snow people but he did t Snow Republican participation in the at tempt to retire Weicker involves people other than hard Shell conservatives and thinking More profound than the ideological urge to purge liberals. Lib or Man is a Liberal although nol to the Weicker degree or in the hydrophobic Weicker manner. And sinous Long standing Republican activists who Are now Active against Weicker know this a Weicker Vole that would give republicans control of the Senate would be far More important than at his other Voles combined. Because few republicans would Sacri fice Senate control even for the deep cathartic pleasure of defeating Weicker he probably will Call in some Republican senators to lie heroically on his behalf by exaggerating the Chance of Republican control. But control would result Only if Bush s coat aits an oxymoron produced a gain of four seats. \ net loss u More Likely. So free from the fear that they May Cost their party Senate control the Chal Lenge for anti Weicker republicans is to relate their rebellion to something More worthy than ideological fastidiousness. It should be something even larger than the Correct belief that Weicker s political style involves Loo much subtraction from Public civility. The rebellion should be based on this idea there must be some limits to the disregard of party loyalty some boundaries however Broad to the naked individual that characterizes political careers like Weicker s
