Explanation: The archconservative Republican shithead (but I repeat myself) and US President Ronald Reagan was caught by investigations of the US Congress to have illegally sold weapons to Iran, via Israel, to fund death squads in Nicaragua after Congress had forbade him to do so - the Iran-Contra Affair.
When placed under oath, 90% of his responses were “I don’t recall” - a mealy-mouthed excuse that let him wriggle out of being called out for lying under oath, as conclusively proving whether a fucking septuagenarian actually remembers specific details at a given moment in time is almost impossible. As ‘civility politics’ still reigned supreme on both sides of the aisle, Reagan got off scot-free, even as a few lesser figures received punishments for the massive violation of Constitutional separation of powers and enablement of fucking war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ten years later, Republican civility politics would conveniently dissolve as the opportunity to impeach a Democrat president for lying under oath, by Republican partisans offering contradictory definitions in a question they demanded he answer multiple times. Fuck Bill Clinton for reasons other than that, though, including for the fact that Clinton was a rapist and a neoliberal.
Obligatory reminder that the one leading the push to impeach Clinton, Newt Gingrich (possibly the person most responsible for the end of civility politics), was at that same time cheating on his (second) wife while she was suffering in the hospital. And that said impeachment rose out of a lengthy failed investigation into the Clinton’s finances because the Republicans under Gingrich were desperate for anything to use against him, no matter how minor.
(Not strictly related, but I’ll never turn down a chance to shit on Newt Gingrich.)
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Explanation: The archconservative Republican shithead (but I repeat myself) and US President Ronald Reagan was caught by investigations of the US Congress to have illegally sold weapons to Iran, via Israel, to fund death squads in Nicaragua after Congress had forbade him to do so - the Iran-Contra Affair.
When placed under oath, 90% of his responses were “I don’t recall” - a mealy-mouthed excuse that let him wriggle out of being called out for lying under oath, as conclusively proving whether a fucking septuagenarian actually remembers specific details at a given moment in time is almost impossible. As ‘civility politics’ still reigned supreme on both sides of the aisle, Reagan got off scot-free, even as a few lesser figures received punishments for the massive violation of Constitutional separation of powers and enablement of fucking war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ten years later, Republican civility politics would conveniently dissolve as the opportunity to impeach a Democrat president for lying under oath, by Republican partisans offering contradictory definitions in a question they demanded he answer multiple times. Fuck Bill Clinton for reasons other than that, though, including for the fact that Clinton was a rapist and a neoliberal.
Obligatory reminder that the one leading the push to impeach Clinton, Newt Gingrich (possibly the person most responsible for the end of civility politics), was at that same time cheating on his (second) wife while she was suffering in the hospital. And that said impeachment rose out of a lengthy failed investigation into the Clinton’s finances because the Republicans under Gingrich were desperate for anything to use against him, no matter how minor.
(Not strictly related, but I’ll never turn down a chance to shit on Newt Gingrich.)