Demonic_ How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America - Ann Coulter [46]
Now here’s the most dazzling part of the conspiracy theory: The investigation of the October Surprise was itself an October Surprise.
The Democrats’ Show Trials into Sick’s cuckoo allegations didn’t take place until 1992—a dozen years after the alleged conspiracy but the very year one of the main alleged conspirators, then-president George H. W. Bush, was running for reelection.
Why didn’t the New York Times start pushing the October Surprise conspiracy theory in 1984, when Reagan was running for reelection? Why not in 1988, the first time alleged conspirator Bush was running for president? The answer is: Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. Those elections weren’t close. Why waste a mammoth, preposterous lie trying to save the likes of Michael Dukakis?
Rumors about Reagan and the Ayatollah had been buzzing about the dental fillings of nutcakes for more than a decade, but suddenly, just before a presidential election twelve years later, Congress and the media were ravenous to investigate whether the Republican president facing reelection was a traitor. Ironically, Democrats carrying on about how Republicans had engaged in dirty tricks to steal the 1980 election was a dirty trick to steal the 1992 election.
The New York Times did not begin hawking the October Surprise theory until the third year of Bush’s presidency—and didn’t stop until Bill Clinton was elected. Right through the 1992 presidential election, newspapers were crackling with accusations that Bush had been involved in Reagan’s fiendish plan to keep American hostages in the hands of Islamic lunatics until Carter lost the election.
ABC’s Ted Koppel set the tone on Nightline, saying that if the allegations were true, “it would be an act of political treachery bordering on treason.”20 The Associated Press reported—in February of an election year—“Democrats contend that they are not out to get Reagan or Bush but simply want to clear the air of a rumor that, if true, would amount to treason.”21
Yes, and if it were true that Obama was a secret agent of al Qaeda—think of what that would mean!
Apart from not being true, how was the October Surprise conspiracy different from the late Senator Ted Kennedy engaging in secret negotiations with the Soviet Union in order to undermine Reagan’s foreign policy? If the October Surprise was so dastardly that we had to spend millions of dollars investigating it, how about investigating a U.S. senator warning the Russkies that the U.S. president was a belligerent lunatic who was terrifying all “rational people.”22 Unlike the October Surprise, that actually happened. Other people who may still be working in Democratic politics were involved. How about an investigation into that bit of treason?
Even after liberal publications such as the Village Voice, the New Republic,23 and Newsweek24 had thoroughly debunked the October Surprise, a Democratic House and Senate were convening lengthy investigations into whether Reagan had struck a secret deal with Iranian monsters holding Americans hostage. Sick, darling of the New York Times, denounced the debunkers, claiming Snepp was still connected to the CIA, that New Republic reporter Steve Emerson was part of a Zionist conspiracy, and that the Senate report was “another cover-up.”25
The House investigation of Bush’s role in the nonexistent October Surprise began in February 1992 and the Senate inquiry began in the spring of that year—coincidentally, a presidential election year. In the House, not one single Republican voted for the investigation and thirty-four honest Democrats voted against it. Neither congressional inquiry managed to wrap up before the election. So George H. W. Bush ran for reelection while two show trials—er, congressional investigations—were in the process of determining whether or not he had committed treason. That sounds fair.
The Senate completed its inquiry into the October Surprise a few weeks after the 1992 presidential election. The House completed its investigation one week before Bill Clinton’s inauguration.
Having served its function,