Bob Parker: ABC World News January 6, 1987: The 100th Congress and The Iran Contra Investigation

Source: Bob Parker: ABC World News January 6, 1987: The 100th Congress and The Iran Contra Investigation

Early 1987 and really the whole 1987 year was a bad one for President Ronald Reagan and the Reagan Administration. Republicans, lost the Senate in 1986 which gave Congressional Democrats complete control of Congress going into 1987. Just when the Iran Contra investigation was in the news and when both the Senate and House was looking into that. The House and Senate put together a joint Congressional committee to investigate the Iran Contra situation in the summer of 1987. Where people like Marine Colonel Oliver North became a famous name and person and became a main focus of the Congressional Iran Contra Committee.

I was eleven years old and in fifth grade for most of 1987, so I don’t remember a whole lot about the politics that year. I remember seeing some of the Iran Contra Committee with my parents on TV. I remember hearing about Gary Hart running for president and then dropping out because he was caught having an affair with a women who wasn’t his wife. I remember hearing the name Michael Dukakis and a little about Robert Bork who President Reagan nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court. But most of these things except for Gary Hart and Mike Dukakis weren’t good for President Reagan. And all issues that Vice President George Bush would have to inherit as he ran for president in 1988.

For really the first six years of the Reagan Administration, except for perhaps 1986 when Iran Contra became a big issue, President Reagan and his team were always on the offensive. And able to push their issues and get the country behind them in some key areas. They got their military buildup, tax cuts, Social Security reform, immigration reform, negotiations and better relations with Russia, to use as examples. But 1987 was the 1998 for the Reagan Administration. Where they played defense for most if not the whole year. Either answering questions they didn’t want to answer, or trying to avoid questions that they didn’t want to give the full truth on.

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Bob Parker: ABC World News Tonight July 13, 1987: Iran-Contra Investigation

Source:Bob Parker– World News Tonight, from longtime ABC News anchor Peter Jennings. RIP

“ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings July 13, 1987 Part 1”

From Bob Parker

The Iran Contra affair was definitely the story of the summer of 1987. I was eleven then and had just finished the fifth grade, going off to outdoor ed summer camp and my first ever basketball camp. As well as vacationing with my family in West Virginia. So it was a fun summer for me. And when I wasn’t doing those things I got to see a little of the Iran Contra hearings, probably on PBS since we didn’t have cable yet, with my mother.

Really that whole year up until the summer of 87, which isn’t a title of a song, at least that I know of, the new Democratic Congress that now had both the House and Senate with a large Democratic majority in the House, the Reagan Administration was on the defensive. Because of Iran Contra and Americans as well as Congress perhaps both Democrats and Republicans believing that the Reagan Administration at the very least did some things that they didn’t inform Congress about. Or committed some illegal violations of national security law.

When the Iran Contra investigation was put under the national spotlight ( so to speak ) and you got to see this joint Congressional Committee investigating Iran Contra on national TV, then you got to see Representatives and Senators from the House and Senate at their best and worst, essentially trying to make names for themselves and look good politically at the expense of President Ronald Reagan, who was still fairly popular politically, even if his administration wasn’t. And what you got see at least during week one of this Congressional Committee were Democratic Representatives and Senators making asses out of themselves. Trying to make Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North look like the bad guy. When he instead he came out looking like a national hero.

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