Oh, How They Laughed! 
Intrepid rakers of muck at Consortium News are still on the case of Iran-Contra, long after most of us have blurred Ollie North and Gordon Liddy in the Leather-Jacketed-Poseur-Infamous-For-Something category.
Who Did Which President Know…
…And When Did They Know Them? 
Their latest nugget is a draft report from the Congressional Iran-Contra investigation, exploring the domestic propaganda fallout of the scandal. The CIA was turned on the American people, Army Psy-Ops men were brought to Washington from Fort Bragg for the plot.
Kicking that Vietnam Syndrome, The Early Years 
All in service of the Reagan Administration’s scheme to fund Nicaraguan terrorists by selling weapons to Iran, defending itself from Iraq’s invasion. Which we were abetting, sending Donald Rumsfeld to wink at Saddam Hussein’s “terrorizing his own people“.
Reagan went into the plan fearing he’d be hung by his thumbs if word leaked. But he walked when Congress caved, confronted by Dick Cheney and other Iran-Contra Deniers, burying it’s report in the interests of reaching across the aisles to get things done in a bi-partisan fashion.
Too much can be made of the report, and is, but it’s worth reading as an early example of White House media manipulation which is now commonplace.
“…one of the CIA’s most senior covert action operators, was sent to the NSC in 1983 by CIA Director Casey where he participated in the creation of an inter-agency public diplomacy mechanism that included the use of seasoned intelligence specialists… This public/private network set out to accomplish what a covert CIA operation in a foreign country might attempt to sway the media, the Congress, and American public opinion in the direction of the Reagan Administration’s policies.“
As Cheney demonstrated recently with Gerald Ford, he’ll use any stick to beat the dog. Kind words on the death of Ford became a consensus that Nixon got what he deserved, so Bush will be vindicated in the fullness of time too.
The Democrats never seem to learn to kick ’em when they’re down.
Winsome, Lose Some 
It’s one step forward, one step back for gigantic representations of Ronald Reagan. An immense Reagan statue has been dedicated in Covington Louisiana, with a head oddly swollen compared to the original noggin.
Maybe It’s The Hair? 
Elsewhere, setbacks for the cause. A young Bill Clinton led anti-war demonstrations at the London Grosvenor Square American embassy. A Reagan statue was proposed for the square, but has just been turned down by the Westminster Public Art Advisory Committee.
It was double dipping by Chaz Fagen, who’s already making the Reagan statue to go in the US Capitol. He’s already done 
Bush Sr., and a Reagan 
relief bust for the USS Ronald Reagan.
Life Like! 
More detail emerges on new rides at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Museum & Fun Park, as a team of Kansans travel to California to install a Boeing 707 flight simulator in a shed near the Air Force One Pavilion.
Kansas’s El Dorado Times reports that the vintage hardware’s sad fate is to reward impressionable youths who have survived role playing exercises pretending to re-invade Grenada.
Signed, Sealed & Disappeared 
Barack Obama’s campaign has yanked the cheesy presidentish seal that has been called mocking, outrageous, and possibly illegal by somewhat fevered observers.
The real crime of course is burdening the eagle with the existing Obama graphic 
– it still looks like a small town electric co-op logo.
No word if the Reagan Library will drop or modify it’s presidential sealish jelly jar adorning design. 
