by sunny » Fri Jan 27, 2006 2:08 pm
I don't know about you all, but I never heard of this particular filibuster. It is very telling of the neo-con mind-set, as they were filibustering to <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>block an investigation into Republican corruption</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> and not for any conceivable higher purpose.Here is the story from Robert Parry:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/012706.html">www.consortiumnews.com/2006/012706.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>excerpt:<br><br>In 1991, the Democratic-controlled Senate was planning an investigation into whether Republicans had conducted secret negotiations with Iran’s Islamic fundamentalist regime during the 1980 campaign, when Jimmy Carter was still President and Iran was holding 52 Americans hostage.<br><br>The unresolved hostage crisis destroyed Carter’s reelection hopes and gave an important boost to Ronald Reagan when the hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, immediately after he was sworn in as President and George H.W. Bush became Vice President.<br><br>A decade after those events, some Democrats wanted to get to the bottom of recurring allegations that George Bush Sr., a former CIA director, had joined clandestine negotiations with Iran in fall 1980 that may have delayed release of the hostages for political gain, what was called the “October Surprise” mystery.<br><br>Meanwhile, Republicans were worried that a full-scale October Surprise investigation might implicate Bush in near-treasonous talks with an enemy state and devastate his 1992 reelection campaign. Confirmation of the allegations also would have eviscerated the legitimacy of the Reagan-Bush era.<br> <p></p><i></i>
