I suspect much of this country feels, as I do, that Ronald Reagan was not the saint that the radical Right would like us to believe. Still, the media coverage this past week has not only been gushingly positive, but also all-consuming.
While watching that carriage parade around for 4 hours last night, and suffering through Dick Cheney’s political eulogy, I kept thinking of the horrible things this guy was responsible for — and many of them meet my definition of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
- He sent Rumsfeld to shake hands with Saddam Hussein on an arms deal.
- He gave Saddam weaponized biological agents, for use in the war against Iran.
- He gave Iran weapons, laundered money through Saudi banks, and funneled the money to the death squads in central America, after Congress specifically passed a bill forbidding any help to the Contras.
- He sold cocaine (see the report prepared by a certain Sen. John F. Kerry in the early 90s), to fund the death squads in central America. 500,000 people died in these wars.
- He pulled us out of Beirut. And then, invaded Grenada like the next day, so he didn’t look like a total wuss. Islamic extremists cheered, and no one could figure out what the hell Granada did to warrant invasion. Bait and switch.
- He trained Osama on how to beat a superpower in Afghanistan.
- He created the homeless problem, and said that people “choose” to be homeless.
- He refused to cut off business and diplomatic contact with apartheid-era South Africa.
And yet, no articles of impeachment in eight years… don’t get me started on what they did to Clinton.
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