Mounting evidence that Trump has Alzheimer's Disease:

[karynnj]

38. However, the right central part of the media treated Iran/Contra as done for US good

GHWB was able to claim he heard nothing on the illegal Contra support. When confronted with proof he attended meetings where it was discussed, he claimed that those discussions must have happened when he went to the men's room. Yet it was the economy starting to fail and his raising a tax that were said to lead to his defense - not Iran/Contra. In fact, I do not remember either Clinton or Perot bringing it up. (I tried to read the NYT daily then, but I was a working mother of three kids under 7 - so I could have missed something.) Before he left office, he pardoned 5 people who were indicted because of illegal things they did.

Yet, both Oliver North, who led the effort to arm the Contras after Congress made that illegal, and Elliot Abrams are pundits given platforms to speak. North, who should have gone to jail, is a right wing hero and has been treated as such by Fox News and every outlet to its right. Abrahms writes op-eds and is constantly quoted, especially on the Mid east and Iran -- where is past of being pardoned by GHWB is never included in the footnote. ( When the Boston Globe some time in Obama's first term, quoted Abrahms on something John Kerry said in the SFRC, Kerry's chief of staff responded in a letter by starting that when he is quoted on anything involving Kerry, it should be noted that he got a GHWB pardon to save him from charges stemming from lying to Kerry when Abrahms was called to the SFRC . However, the point is even the MSM quotes him as one of several pundits.

My own view is that unlike Watergate, Monica, or Trump's many illegal actions, Iran/Contra involved covert actions of the United States where US opinion was really mixed - at least on the Contra issue. Even many Democrats would have wanted the US to provide arms and material assistance to the Contras, who were portrayed as fighting communism - rather than as the right wing thugs they were. On the other issues, you could argue that it was the PRESIDENT and his people who were said to have done something wrong -- rather than it being something done in the world in the name of the United States. (I KNOW that watergate actually exposed Nixon illegally using much of the US intelligence and law enforcement, but the way people saw it was only on obstruction of justice to end the investigation.)

With Iran/Contra, I suspect it is the acceptance of covert actions and a rejection of past Congressional limits placed on it. Similarly, remember how there was almost no Congressional support to even investigate the lies that led us into Iraq. One possibility is that there might be enough people on both sides who might not be willing to call those actions illegal - often limiting themselves to saying they are unwise or that they opposed them.