Tag: Daniel Inouye

“What I want to have people know I stood for were ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’ and, yes, as Dad taught us, ‘service.’” The deaths this year of Mr. Bush and Senator John McCain have been described as the passing of an era, the demise of pragmatic Republicanism. And accommodations on issues were often made (and as often regretted) in order to win or stay in office. They also came of age at a time when military service was common; wartime bonds and shared cultural touchstones often trumped partisan differences; and zeal was not required for elected office. Mr. Bush was a naval aviator during World War II. Senator John McCain was a naval aviator during the Vietnam War. That crusade led him toward a greater willingness to confront his own party, and he ran to the left of George W. Bush in the 2000 primary before occupying a similar place on domestic issues during the younger Mr. Bush’s presidency. “They both had an understanding that politics was something that’s imperfect but the idea was that you do the best you can and the most important thing is that you govern and work things out,” said former Senator John C. Danforth, a Missouri Republican who served with Mr. McCain while Mr. Bush was vice president and president. “He was saying, ‘I was your friend in the House, I’m still your friend and we’re going to do stuff together,’” Mr. Danforth said. But these are different times. Jesse Jackson, who twice sought the presidency in the same era that the political careers of Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush took flight.

Iran Contra unfolded shortly after the midterm elections of 1986, when Democrats retook control of the Senate, and news reports started to reveal a secret shadow operation that had been conducted by high-level officials in the administration to free hostages in Lebanon by selling arms to Iran. The investigations that followed were conducted on several fronts. The conservative Republican Senator from Texas, John Tower, headed a presidentially-appointed commission that looked into how the administration handled its national security decisions. Hamilton offered a stern warning during a television interview early in the process, predicting that if the committee found evidence that Reagan knew about and approved the diversion of funds: “It is likely if that occurred--and let us emphasize the ‘if’—that if it occurred, you would have a demand for impeachment proceedings.” CNN enjoyed a 70 percent increase in its audience share against the major shows of the period. Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh undertook a multi-million dollar investigation that wouldn’t conclude until 1992. They showed that top officials in the executive branch had circumvented the will of Congress. Although several Reagan officials, such as Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, had opposed the plan, they were outflanked by McFarlane as well as CIA Director William Casey. The news contradicted the president’s insistence that he would never negotiate with terrorists. Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter in 1980 criticizing him for being soft with the Iranians; now he had sold them weapons. Trump doesn't live by the same rules as we do.