Radical left-wing media has no shame – and no journalistic ethics. In its attempt to destroy the Republican Party, the propagandist media keeps going back in history to malign the Republican Party and historic Republican figures.
I say “destroy” the Republican Party because that is the current strategy of the left. Numerous hosts and panelists on MSNBC have repeatedly called for the GOP to be “crushed,” “utterly defeated”.
As part of that effort, the left is attempting to besmirch the history of the Republican Party. They are even attacking the Reputation of President Lincoln with revisionist history. They resurrect the Watergate Scandal when discussing President Nixon – without a balanced assessment of his extraordinary accomplishments (opening diplomatic relations with China and the passage of affirmative action programs to combat historic racism).
Now we have historical revisionism regarding President Reagan. One of the earliest major accomplishments of the Reagan administration was the release of 52 American hostages who had been held for more than 400 days by the terrorist regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Reagan’s predecessor, Jimmy Carter, was unable to secure the release despite months of negotiations. Those are the facts.
We now have a new left-wing narrative re-interpreting – nay, falsifying — the facts.
A little know Texas political operative named Ben Barnes claims that officials of the Reagan campaign – specifically former Texas Governor John Connally – sent messages to Khomeini to hold the hostages until after the election. As the theory goes, this would take away a positive campaign development for the beleaguered Carter team – and give Reagan bragging rights if he were to win the election. Which he did, of course.
Left-wing media ate up the latest story as if it were a factual revelation – occasionally admitting that there was not one scintilla of hard evidence in support of Barnes’s claim. Headlines carried the claim as fact — such as “Reagan team tried to sabotage hostage talks before the 1980 election”.
Blogger Kevin Drum – in an attempt to breathe credibility into the story – wrote that part of Barnes’ story was corroborated by records that showed Connally did travel to the Middle East at the time – and Barnes was in the entourage. This does not corroborate the story at all, but is an example of how the left misleads.
So, who is the Barnes character? He was a political roust-about in Texas politics for most of his life. At the time of his revelation, he was a desperately ill person in hospice with diminished capacity.
There was no evidence to support Barnes’ claim – no corroborating testimony. In fact, if you applied traditional journalistic standards, the single-source story should never have been reported. No other witness. No other documents. Just a few of Barnes’ old buddies who recently recalled having heard that story from Barnes years ago. No one with direct knowledge. It was nothing more than one-source gossip by a guy in the delirium of hospice.
Barnes said that the messages were sent to the Irani leadership through other parties in the Middle East during a visit to the region by Connally. Barnes had accompanied him on the that trip. The discussions undertaken during that trip were then reported to William Casey, chairman of the Reagan campaign.
According to liberal thinking. Khomeini responded to the requests from the Reagan campaign in order to help the former California Governor defeat Carter. We are to believe that Khomeini meddled in the election in favor of the tough-talking hawkish Reagan – an anti-Khomeini hardliner – over the weaker and less effective Carter. According to Barnes, the message to Khomeini was to help Reagan get elected because he would give the Iranian leader “a better deal.” That alone puts Barnes’ claim in the category of preposterous.
Reagan was ahead in the polls at the time. If Khomeini was to use the hostages to influence the election, it is more likely he would have released them to Carter. Barnes’ irrational theory alone – and the fact that Khomeini never got a “better deal” from Reagan — should have put Barnes’ claim in serious doubt. It just does not pass the smell test.
So, there ‘tis.