Let's Not Get All Mushy Now About This...

The Reagan Years

How Soon We Forget Real Corruption

Gleeful charges by Republicans that Whitewater is comparable to Watergate and that the Clinton Administration is more corrupt than any recent administration are ludicrous when compared to the actual record of corruption in the Reagan-Bush administration and when it is noted that the charges against Clinton result from goings-on in Arkansas long before he became President.

With Reagan, scandals occured while he was President. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Haynes Johnson's book, 'Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years' (1991, Doubleday), chronicles the U.S.'s fall from dominant world power to struggling debtor nation during the Reagan years. Johnson says 'two types of problems typified the ethical misconduct cases of the Reagan years, and both had heavy consequences to citizens everywhere.

One stemmed from ideology and deregulatory impulses run amok; the other, from classic corruption on a grand scale.' 'By the end of his term, 138 administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever.' (P. 184).

'Reagan's customary response to instances of wrongdoing by aides was to criticize those who brought the charges or to blame the media that reported them.' 'Three great scandals stained the Reagan record," and they all involved the age-old form of corruption formed by the connection between money and politics. What distinguished them in the Reagan years was the number of buyers and sellers involved, and the amount of money there was to be made. The sheer volume of both had multiplied beyond any previous measure.