The Contra Affair Of The Reagan Administration - 1686 Words

In 1992, George H.W. Bush ran for President for a second time, this time though, something was different. More information linking Bush to the Iran Contra Affair of the Reagan Administration had become public, and the news media was beginning to make the connections. In one of the first articles released regarding his involvement in 1992, the author, Walter Pincus, began to openly criticize Bush for his deception. Pincus, who wrote a lot about Bush and his involvement, explains that â€Å"In the almost six years since the scandal surfaced, records and testimony from congressional and legal proceedings reveal that Bush, while vice president, watched Iran-Contra unfold from a front-row seat in the White House.† (Pincus, Walter, 1). Pincus is†¦show more content†¦In another article by Pincus, he digs into Bush’s integrity as well, especially when Bush had seemed to be blatantly lying. Pincus wrote that â€Å"during an NBC interview Sept. 6, he replied that Ã¢â‚¬Ë œthis seems to me to be just a late smokescreen out of that dead old saw out there. And I have nothing to explain. . . . And nobody has suggested that I ve done anything wrong.’†(Pincus, Walter, 1). Pincus, although not explicitly attacking Bush in this instance, it taking a subtle dig at Bush. He is calling out Bush on his apparent hypocrisy, and failure to come clean. The true sentiments of the news media though were exemplified in a San Francisco Chronicle article from August of 1992. This article openly attacked Bush, picking apart his claims one by one. This article criticizes him for being ignorant, hippocritical, deceitful, and generally a liar.(Note Contradicts Bush, 1) During this period of resurgent media coverage of the Iran Contra Affair, somewhat surprisingly, the news media never turned its attention toward Reagan. This provides some further insight into the reasoning behind this phenomena. Reagan was a second term president, a widely liked communist fight er, an older trustworthy man whose memory may not have been what it used to be, and when some fresher meat came into the picture, the media pounced. Bush’s involvement presented the opportunity to blame