POLI 342 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Iranian Revolution, Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship, George H. W. Bush
11 May 2018
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February 27 - Scandals and crises surrounding political actors
• Major and minor scandals happen from time to time with regard to the involvement of key officials
• What kind of impact do these events have on the political process
Examples:
• Impeachment and the case of Bill Clinton
o Second time that a President has been impeached
o Charges followed from lies in a grand jury testimony
o Acquitted by the Senate, with all Dems and a few Reps voting against a conviction
o Key points with regard to this case
▪ Moral values: “proxy” charges and legal actions:
▪ General confrontational context of the 1990s
▪ The Presidency as a spectacle
▪ Impeachment without conviction
• The President’s knowledge about covert operations and the Iran-Contra Reagan affair
o Middle of 1980s: right after the Iranian revolution, iranian hostages
o Relationship between US and Iran was/is tense
o Reagan president from 1981-1988: popular republican president
o Political context: democratic house of representatives/dominated congress which is opposed to
some of the policies represented by the President
o During his time: hostages in lebanon, secretive discussions = deal is that Iran will be sold arms by
the US government but in return will convince isbola to let go of the hostages (arms illegal since
embargo after the iranian revolution)
▪ Doesn’t successfully work at first, US combines money with private funds to give to Iran,
government uses some money from the arms to sell to Nicaragua (is a problem as they’re
not supposed to support that group)
▪ This is a scandal that arises from the battle between the presidency and congress
▪ Congress had problems with having no control over foreign policy
o Reagan’s end of 2nd term made him look like he didn’t know the details of what was going on;
have to decide between looking guilty or un-knowledgeable
o VP Bush at the time claimed not to know about it, but his personal diary was taken and there was
proof that he had known what was going on
o Impacts in hindsight?
▪ Other similar actions without scrutiny
▪ The president’s role vs. responsibility
▪ Turf wars between congress and the pres: one of the two branches wanted to have the last
word on how foreign policy is conducted, the other does it anyways
• Other examples and conclusions
o Charles Rangel and ethics violations = he was a common, vocal member of congress
o Anthony Wiener and sexting accusations = resigned from congress, got caught again a few years
later sexting a minor so he was convicted to a few years in prison
• Impacts of scandals on the political process
o Drawing attention away from other issues
o Participating in cynicism in the population
o Enhancement of the entertainment view of the President: two models of the presidency that have
been developed over the past 50 years
▪ Imperial presidency: at first, thought president would have an important role but were
worried about them dominating the entire government = checks and balances
▪ Entertainment view: because of television and media, president needs to be there
physically to respond to events and crises
• But also: overlap with other dynamics associated with “crises” context
o The necessity of “doing something”
o The opportunity to be the crisis’ solver = due to entertainment view, public wants to see how the
president handles crises
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