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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank Griffin who wrote (11430)	2/18/2000 4:18:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 769667

I certainly do. I have no brief for Clinton. I personally prefer McCain in this race, because, generally, I prefer adults for president. I am amazed that the special prosecutor did not investigate that matter. Mena, of course, is tied into the drug charges against Bush.

To: Frank Griffin who wrote (11430)	2/18/2000 11:17:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 769667

Of all the Clinton rumors that will never die, Mena may be my favorite. By all indications, Mena was a Reagan era CIA operation in the contra arms / drug running vein. How Clinton was supposed to have done something about this is one of these conundrums that only the supple and complex intellects of the conspiracy theorists of the Right can explain. From a review of PARTNERS IN POWER The Clintons and Their America. By Roger Morris, in the NYT, 7/28/96. (Morris is apparently one of those supple and complex intellects) The two matters 'Partners in Power' examines that have received little coverage are Bill Clinton's relationship with Dan Lasater and his knowledge of goings-on at the Mena airport in western Arkansas. Mr. Lasater was a bond dealer and race horse owner who socialized with the Clintons in the early 1980's, taking them to the Kentucky Derby in his private plane and contributing to Mr. Clinton's campaigns. Mr. Lasater's firm made a tidy sum underwriting Arkansas state housing bonds. He was also a drug dealer who paid off the drug debts of Mr. Clinton's addicted half brother, Roger, and briefly gave him a job. Mr. Lasater ultimately did time in prison, but Mr. Morris says state and Federal investigations into his activities and his relationship with Mr. Clinton were 'stunted.' By far the most incendiary charges Mr. Morris makes concern Intermountain Regional Airport in Mena, Ark., which he calls 'one of the world centers of the narcotics trade' in the early 1980's. Barry Seal, a pilot charged with Quaalude smuggling, flew weapons from Mena to the contras in Nicaragua and brought back cocaine and heroin. According to L. D. Brown, a disaffected Arkansas state trooper, Mr. Clinton (and Vice President George Bush) knew all about the operation. Mr. Morris's main sources for the story are Mr. Brown; Bill Duncan and Russell Welch, an I.R.S. agent and an Arkansas State Police detective who claim their inquiries into the smugglers were quashed; and the archives of Seal, who was murdered in 1986. The story could be an Oliver Stone scenario. But it could also be a page out of Iran-contra testimony. It would take a Congressional committee, or a special prosecutor, to get to the bottom of it -- if there is a bottom. There would certainly be an interesting defendants' table. Yeah, it's totally believable that investigations of Lasater were "stunted". By Clinton? If you have a suitably subtle and complex intellect, you can believe that if you want. I'm sure there's a very interesting story buried in there somewhere, and I doubt very much we'll ever find out what was really going on. Given the context, it seems improbable that Clinton would be the one to come out looking the worst there, though, unless you think maybe Clinton was being run by the Reagan era CIA. In another context, we have a direct quote from W: I think the baby-boomer parent ought to say, 'I've learned from mistakes I may or may not have made.' What are we to make of that?