- Sarah Palin will, once again, be skipping CPAC.
- Speaking of Palin, Stephen Stromberg learns just how pointless it is to point out that she has no idea what she is talking about.
- John Hagee is up in arms over Sen. Rand Paul plan to cut aid to Israel.
- You can watch tonight’s right-wing anti-Planned Parenthood webcast here.
- On a related note, right-wing anti-choice advocates are claiming that YouTube is trying to “censor” Live Action’s videos. Can we point out that YouTube complete shut down our last channel? So obviously that means YouTube is biased against liberals.
- Finally, in honor of Ronald Reagan’s upcoming 100th birthday, I give you this quote from the book “Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up,” written by Iran-Contra Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh:
Whatever the intentions, the effects of the political institutions – legitimate and illegitimate – were to prolong the Iran-Contra investigations, to increase its cost, and to frustrate the prosecution of those who had helped conceal President Reagan’s willful disregard of constitutional restraints on his power.
But if Congress made my work more difficult, the root of the problem was the executive branch’s strategy. Ronald Reagan’s advisors succeeded in creating a firewall around him. He escaped meaningful interrogation until it was no longer of use, and he escaped prosecution altogether, while subordinates suffered. The delay in producing government records and the concealment of personal notes were crucial to the strategy. George Bush’s misuse of the pardon power made the cover-up complete.
What set Iran-Contra apart from previous political scandals was the fact that a cover-up engineered in the White House of one president and completed by his successor prevented the rule of law from being applied to the perpetrators of criminal activity of constitutional dimension.
