The Left never lets go of anything or forgets its history. No conspiracy theory is too dead to be dragged up again. And with Carter on the way out, the New York Times decided to drag out its old claim that the Carter administration’s Iran hostage crisis was somehow the fault of Reagan who bribed Iran not to free the hostages.
This conspiracy theory never made any sense since the hostages were released on the last day of the Carter administration. If there had been some secret deal by Reagan’s people, then the release would have happened after Reagan took office and initiated some sort of proposal plan to obtain their freedom.
When your conspiracy theory’s payoff never adds up, then there’s no ‘there’ there.
The New York Times claims to have dug up a witness in the form of Ben Barnes. The New York Times never mentions that Barnes is a top Democrat activist and was one of Kerry’s biggest fundraisers or that he’d previously gone around claiming that he’d gotten George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard.
The media shopped that ‘scoop’ around in 2005 as if Barnes were credible. Now it’s doing it all over again while failing to mention the last time this happened when the story could never be confirmed.
“I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard when I was lieutenant governor of Texas, and I’m not necessarily proud of that, but I did it,” Barnes said in the 45-second video, which was recorded May 27 at a meeting of John Kerry supporters in Austin.
This latest story follows the same pattern, a supposedly heartfelt retelling of a story he now regrets and feels guilty about.
One problem. It can’t be confirmed. Also it makes no sense.
Mr. Barnes said he had no idea of the purpose of the Middle East trip when Mr. Connally invited him. They traveled to the region on a Gulfstream jet owned by Superior Oil. Only when they sat down with the first Arab leader did Mr. Barnes learn what Mr. Connally was up to, he said.
Mr. Connally said, “‘Look, Ronald Reagan’s going to be elected president and you need to get the word to Iran that they’re going to make a better deal with Reagan than they are Carter,’” Mr. Barnes recalled. “He said, ‘It would be very smart for you to pass the word to the Iranians to wait until after this general election is over.’ And boy, I tell you, I’m sitting there and I heard it and so now it dawns on me, I realize why we’re there.”
Mr. Barnes said that, except for Israel, Mr. Connally repeated the same message at every stop in the region to leaders such as President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt.
Sadat was fundamentally hostile to the new Iranian regime. So hostile that the Iranians likely played a role in prepping the Muslim Brotherhood to assassinate him after he offered the Shah asylum.
Trying to negotiate with Iran through Sadat would be like trying to negotiate with Israel by sending messages through Hamas. It makes zero sense especially since the Islamic regime had actual supporters in America and Europe that any envoy could have met with if it wanted to pass on a message to Tehran.
Either the New York Times is illiterate when it comes to politics and history, or it just doesn’t give a damn.
Guess Barnes is like Ehrlich, the left trots him out every new generation to fool the kiddies and memory challenged after it’s generally forgotten what a fraud he is.
‘I rode a Gulfstream all the way to the ME without any purpose or clue why.’
Handy to have those guys for a media with selective institutional amnesia
I love that you’re criticizing the times for advancing a “conspiracy theory” that “can’t be confirmed”, but can’t resist including one of your own:
“Sadat was fundamentally hostile to the new Iranian regime. So hostile that the Iranians likely played a role in prepping the Muslim Brotherhood to assassinate him after he offered the Shah asylum.”
This is the definition of a conspiracy theory (“conspiracy”, get it?) that can’t be confirmed.
You crack me up (some days).
“Sadat was extremely critical of the leader of the revolution. He called Ayatollah Khomeini “lunatic”, “the man of hatred” and regarded his policies as “disgrace to Islam”. Ayatollah Khomeini also called upon Egyptians to overthrow Sadat.When a militant soldier affiliated to Egyptian Islamic Jihad assassinated Sadat, Tehran did not hesitate to publically endorse the action and support his motives. When Khalid Islamboly the assassin of Sadat was executed, the Islamic Republic regarded him as a martyr and named a major street after his name in the capital. His pictures were glorified and displayed throughout the country.”
The Camp David Accords didn’t help, either.
Sadat had been an Egyptian Air Force General. In the 1973 war the Egyptian military made major ground gains before Israeli Gen. Ariel Sharon turned them and pushed them back across the Nile River.
Sadat witnessed the terrible carnage the Egyptians were dealt. IMO, he resolved never to go to war with Israel again. He was, I believe a man of honor, unlike his Iranian counterparts.
The New York Times is historically illiterate AND it just doesn’t give a damn.
The New York Slimes has been fake news and spreading fake lies and lies since 1932 and how it covered up the truth and became Stalin’s Propaganda rags with Walter Duranty covered up for Hitler to then later Castro and the Viet Cong and are behind the 1619 project. This leftists rag should be on everyone’s Boycott lost
They also rooted against the Apollo 11 moon landing, and bashed it relentlessly when it succeeded.
I didn’t know that about the Slimes. I bet they crowed about every Soviet success.
I saw Apollo 11 launch from Daytona Beach on vacation when I was between three and four years old. I saw the landing and Armstrong’s first step at home on our little B&W TV that was on a rolling cart. I can still remember both, though my news awareness was such at the time that I got upset when I heard we were killing ‘gorillas’ in Vietnam. By nine I was a regular newspaper reader and aware of media bias.
The message Iran did get in 1980 was the election of Ronald Wilson Reagan. He was the message.
Why would Connally even invite Barnes to join him on the trip?
Had the embassy’s marine guards been allowed to shoot the mob storming the embassy, (like the Russians did theirs), there would have been no hostage crisis. Even afterwards the Iranians expected a forceful US response, Had there been a bombing demonstration the hostages would have been released. Doing nothing only stimulated Iranian mischief.