Quick Work

Tonight the left blogosphere seems to be unusually careless. Must be the hangover from the huge Miss-01 victory celebration or something.

In the post below, I report on Charlie Black being a fool. I researched the topic because Josh Marshall incorrectly claimed that Black is still lobbying from the McCain campaign bus.

In the post below that, I laugh at Matthew Yglesias for typing Khatami when he meant to type Khameini (OK Yglesias's typing has never been reliable).

Now Satyam at think progress writes

To recap, during the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, hostages were not released because of Iran’s fear of Reagan, as McCain suggested. In reality, Iran released them after Reagan administration officials infamously sold arms to the country, which were transfered to Ayatollah Khomeini. As a result, 11 Reagan officials were convicted of crimes.

Furthermore, Reagan did not have to “negotiate” with Iran during the hostage crisis of the 1970s because he wasn’t involved in it. The extensive negotiations with Iran were done before his presidency. In fact, Reagan’s inauguration occurred only minutes before the hostages were released.

Come on guys, be careful. You are (were?) my only source of credibly reliable information.

The claim, evidently, is that within minutes of the inauguration, Reagan administration officials sold arms to Iran. Of course, the Iran-Contra arms sales occured years after the hostages were released.

It has been rumored that Reagan campaign staff promised arms to Iran provided that Iran delayed the release until after the election (the October Surprise hypothesis). This hypothesis is generally, almost universally, believed to be false. Even under the hypothesis that the October suprise conspiracy were to have occured, it certainly did not lead to convictions or trials or, even, a formal investigation.