Jim Henley has one about the fact that the current Iraq-Chalabi-Iran-Non-WMD mess has recycled so many figures from the Iran-Contra scandal. A sample:
Look at the names that have moved in and out of the War on Terror, either on the field of play or cheering from the sidelines: Elliott Abrams, John Poindexter, Michael Ledeen, Oliver North - all men who, had they the merest sense of shame, would have found themselves a job in a small-town title insurance office and stayed as far from the spotlight as possible after 1987, all men that any self-respecting administration would shun like drunk drivers who left the prom queen smeared along a guardrail one awful Spring.And yet they have jobs either making or influencing policy.
Seventeen years ago, Oliver North sat before the Joint Committee and bombastically declared that "This country has enemies, Senator." Well, North was in a position to know after all - he'd been consorting with them for several years. At the very time the Islamic Republic of Iran was torturing American government agents in captivity in Beirut, Oliver North was running a program to get that country's military machine up and running again, and doing it in a way that, at any moment it chose, Iran could make the United States look like fools.
The more things change, baby.
