Someone once said to me, “Wouldn’t it be great if we would all just get behind the president for once? What a great country this would be.” Well, I thought that was a pretty neat concept, and things haven’t really changed much. Today, I believe we should all get behind Reagan so we can swift-kick Ron and his crooked cronies right out of office.

Over the weekend, I spent some time trying to catch up on the latest news about Reagan’s biggest political backfire, the arms sale to Iran. After trying to piece together about five conflicting reports on the subject, I came to the amazing conclusion that this nation is, and probably will forever be, hopelessly baffled over the idiotic blunder.

The very same questions that had the media in an uproar when the whole Iran-contra controversy was first disclosed remain unanswered. Oh sure, after some coaching from his White House aides, Ron explained his position. He said the deal was a carefully planned maneuver designed to gain influence with Iran moderates who might one day rise to power. Okay, so there’s mistake number one. Because U.S. citizens are taken hostage, we start sending mass quantities of lethal weapons to an already deranged and hostile nation. Pretty logical, huh?

Mistake number two: Somehow, much to the dismay of our great president, between $20 and $40 million was supposedly diverted to contra rebels by my friend and yours, Ollie North. So not only does Ron pass the buck on this one and make the world’s biggest scapegoat out of North, but his only defense is absolute stupidity. He might as well have said, “Well, I don’t know how that could have happened, but let’s hope they don’t spend it all in one place.”

Well now we’re getting to the latest, as reported in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune. According to the Trib article, it looks like you and I helped finance a good portion of this little mishap. Apparently the Pentagon made a little boo-boo and gave Israel a $2.6 million discount on the antitank missles and spare parts that were sent to replace the ones Israel sent to Iran. Sound confusing? Just wait.

What seems to have happened is Army officials sent two different types of antitank missles to Israel but forgot that the two models also had different prices. In addition, the “rain-sleet-or-snow” officials forgot to charge for shipping and handling. Obviously, they don’t watch Saturday afternoon television commercials too often.

So in the midst of all this confusion between who did what, what went where, where did the money go and WHAT, if anything, does Reagan really know about his government, comes the answer to everyone’s problems—the committee. When in doubt, form a committee, right? Ron took on the old do-or-die attitude of, “I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out!!” and he formed a committee to add to all the other governmental committees. That a way, Gipper!!

Now it seems to me that it has become a national policy for one to cover one’s butt by forming a committee. That way, one doesn’t have to come up with any answers, and no one person is held accountable for the results—or lack of them for that matter. When Reagan was being pressured for answers, he took the obvious first step, formed the committee, named the members and everyone assumed the new group would handle things. Now when he’s pressured for answers, Ron can simply shirk responsibility and say “the committee is working on it.” And hopefully, for Ron’s sake, that answer will continue to appease the dwindling number of concerned Americans until the whole Iran-contra issue fades out of public view and becomes nothing more than a heavy White House sigh.