Pressing North: questions they didn't ask
Garvey, John
coverage given Secord, North, and Poindexter. And it's essential that Congress, policy makers, and journalists themselves hold the media's feet to the fire to make sure that this coverage is...
...For a change...
...SEVERAL MINDS John Garvey sponse to North's sudden and stupid popularity on the part of our elected rep resentatives, with a very few exceptions, and the laziness of the press, and perhaps the laziness or ineptitude of staffs who are supposed to keep political leaders informed...
...That's what a thorcughgoing set of televised hearings could provide...
...Or they may feel like washing their hands of Central America altogether...
...Democratic control may be a necessary condition for a moral foreign policy but it isn't sufficient...
...and Soviet foreign policy...
...Let's try it...
...But after hearing out the administration and its critics, the public and the Congress might not see it that way...
...But, for the moment, policy would have been determined democratically...
...His popularity is based primarily, I think, on the fact that "Ollie" rhymes with "collie" and makes people think of how nice and wet-eyed and sincere Lassie was...
...Thompson debated whether there was a moral difference between U.S...
...What I kept waiting for was some mention of a few facts (if they aren't facts they have yet to be refuted by North, his attorneys, or his defenders) which appeared in the February 16, 1987 issue of the New Republic - plenty of time, you would think, for staff members to bring them to the attention of our representatives and senators, and for members of the press to bring them to the attention of the public...
...North's strangeness aside, what we ought to worry about is the craven re 14 August 1987: 437...
...A few years ago at the Oxford Student Union, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger and E.P...
...I also thought that the adulation he was starting to receive was a very good argument against direct democracy...
...Weinberger argued that American policy was morally superior because it was democratically controlled...
...But real democracy requires something more than simple congressional approval...
...Frankly, we're not at all sure what the outcome of such hearings would be...
...The U.S...
...They might be swayed by Ollie North's rhetoric or George Shultz's Dutch-uncle sternness...
...Of course, Secretary Weinberger's argument isn't totally correct...
...We apparently have direct democracy at its worst - a reinforced form - because those people who watch "Wheel of Fortune" and who elected Ronald Reagan are themselves watched and followed by the people who are supposed to be their leaders and political educators...
...I waited for someone to say, "Is it true, Lt...
...should assure its essential security interests through an agreement with the Sandinistas and should encourage democracy in Nicaragua by moral and material support (not, to be sure, including arms) to the democratic elements still struggling inside Nicaragua to challenge the Sandinista drive toward a monopoly of power...
...North, that you were PRESSING NORTH QUESTIONS THEY DIDN'T ASK few days into Oliver North's testimony I realized two things: I thought he was crazy, because he had all the charm and all the erratic, completely unmoored reasoning of a couple of people I know who are genuinely nuts, steady-eyed and sincere-seeming loons who are willing to lie or make up stories or do anything else to make their lives seem more interesting to them and to the audience they wait for...
...We hold a brief for neither the Sandinistas nor the contras but think that Washington ought to be seeking an alternative to the current policy...
...But I have begun to question some of my early responses- not because North finally impressed me with his sincerity...
...it requires genuine congressional - and public - deliberation...
...The debate, no doubt, would continue...
...Democracies, too, can decide to do immoral things, democratically...
...And it's essential that Congress, policy makers, and journalists themselves hold the media's feet to the fire to make sure that this coverage is provided...
...Contrasting the American belief that "you can't have a foreign policy if the people can't control it" to the system that allows a handful of men in the Kremlin to lunch an invasion of Afghanistan, the secretary of defense asked: "Who can doubt that we cannot literally do anything - we can't send a soldier anywhere, we can't spend a dime or a nickel or a shilling - that is not approved by our Congress...
...Well, some people have come to doubt it, and more today than when Secretary Weinberger spoke those brave words...
...The White House itself ought to cooperate fully if the president really is convinced that the people, once exposed to all the facts, will support the administration...
...It's a damn good thing, I thought, that we elect people to go through hearings like this and debate their findings in a public forum, instead of allowing easily moved, goofily sentimental, tragically uninformed citizens a direct and unimpeded shot at making national policy...
...Nonetheless, democracy remains the least bad way of deciding things...
Vol. 114 • August 1987 • No. 14
