Demonic_ How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America - Ann Coulter [42]
There’s something else Representative Bill Posey didn’t do, despite his alleged status as a “birther.” He didn’t hold congressional hearings costing taxpayers millions of dollars to investigate a kooky conspiracy theory cooked up by Lyndon LaRouche—as Senate and House Democrats did with LaRouche’s October Surprise conspiracy theory. LaRouche was a plausible source: You’ll recall that he hatched the idea that the Queen of England ran an international drug-smuggling ring. Indeed, LaRouche was the second-most-ridiculous person named “Lyndon” to ever run for president of the United States.
Before it is completely washed down the memory hole, let’s review this spectacular Democratic conspiracy theory: The October Surprise.
To set the stage: It was 1980 and Ronald Reagan was running for president against the incumbent Jimmy Carter. Reagan was the sunny, popular right-wing governor of California. Carter was the bumbling, egotistical coward bent on surrendering to the Soviets, who claimed to have been attacked by a giant swimming rabbit.8 Carter’s economic policies had produced a 21 percent interest rate, a 17 percent mortgage rate, and a 15 percent inflation rate in the coveted “hat trick” of presidential incompetence. Not only that, but he had produced skyrocketing unemployment.
Carter’s brilliant strategic ploy of abandoning the shah of Iran, an important American ally, soon led to soaring oil prices and, of course, Islamic lunatics holding fifty-two Americans hostage in Tehran, where they remained for 444 days, until Carter was safely removed from office by the American people. (Carter’s abandonment of the shah also gave rise to the global Islamofacist movement we’re still dealing with today.) Under Carter, Americans were permitted to put gas in their cars only on alternate days, based on whether the last number on their license plates was an even or odd number. The price of oil had risen 154 percent since the beginning of Carter’s presidency. And these, mind you, were Carter’s accomplishments. He also gave us Ruth Carter, Billy Carter, and a sweater-based energy policy.
With all that going for them—plus that old Mondale magic—Democrats were dumbstruck that they lost the 1980 election. (Nor could they understand, incidentally, why gas prices, inflation, and interest rates shot down and the nation enjoyed peace and prosperity soon after Reagan became president.) Naturally, liberals asked themselves: What other than a dirty trick could explain Carter’s loss?
The Left’s theory was that in October, one month before the 1980 presidential election, members of Reagan’s campaign clandestinely met with representatives of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and offered to sell him weapons in exchange for his promise not to release the hostages before the election. By delaying the release of the hostages, the theory went, Reagan would deprive Carter of a triumphant victory on the eve of the vote. In other words, liberals believed the Islamofascist cutthroats who had been toying with Carter like a cat with a ball of yarn for the past year wanted Carter replaced by someone stronger, like Reagan. Even by the standards of conspiracy theorists, this one was crazy.
But it seemed like a perfectly plausible theory to the editorial board of the New York Times. After all, the hostages were released immediately after Reagan’s inauguration. Surely there was no reason for the Iranians to find Reagan more intimidating than a president who claimed to have been attacked by a giant swimming rabbit. Hadn’t the hostage-takers been scared out of their wits by the photos of Carter wilting like a schoolgirl after jogging?
It was as plain as the nose on your face: Reagan had struck a secret deal! As leading conspiracy theorist Craig Unger put it, “One can almost make a prima facie case that surreptitious deals did take place. The hostages, it should be recalled, were released only minutes after Reagan’s inauguration.” (Even the Columbia