Sometimes, everything comes together and the perfect man gets the perfect job, and all we ordinary mortals can do is wonder at the mysteries and glories of the Divine Clockmaker, as interpreted for us by CNN.

"Oliver North is, hands down, the absolute best choice to lead our NRA Board, to fully engage with our members, and to unflinchingly stand and fight for the great freedoms he has defended his entire life," NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre said in a statement on the pick.

The jokes, they write themselves. A trade association for the arms industry now will be headed by the most famous arms-trafficker in American history. An organization that wears patriotism as though it were the masque of the Red Death will be headed by a guy who sold missiles to one of the world’s leading sponsors of terrorism. An organization that claims to represent the best in American values will now be headed by a guy who sold out a beloved conservative icon so he could keep his felonious hindquarters out of jail, and who was roundly condemned by that icon’s iconic wife.

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Oliver North speaking at the 2018 NRA convention.

The idolization of Ollie North was one of the earliest symptoms of the prion disease that has overtaken the higher functions of the Republican party and that led entirely to the current president*. As a politician running for office, North was the original Don Blankenship. He was present at the creation of many of the forces that created the current perilous state of the republic. Now, though, he’s found the right job at last. He is going to succeed in the world he helped to make, as the good folks at the National Security Archive make clear.

While many thousands of pages were turned over, the charges that critical material had been left out turned out to be true when it emerged that Vice President Bush, Defense Secretary Weinberger, White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, aides to George Shultz and others had failed to turn over their personal notes to the prosecution. This obstructionism clearly contributed to other sources of delay, which in turn fed charges of unreasonableness by [Independent Counsel Lawrence] Walsh’s critics. Again, the legal implications of the criminal charges being filed and contemplated apparently counted for less in the eyes of many Americans than how they felt about the accused.
The final act of post-truthism came with then-President George H.W. Bush’s decision to pardon several key participants in Iran-Contra. Among them were defendants who had not even had their day in court, thus taking Bush further than other presidents have been willing to go with the pardon power. The not-so-subtle implication of the act was to make it impossible to pursue already-developed plans to investigate Bush himself in greater detail. Walsh, already disillusioned by years of overcoming political hurdles, could no longer contain his outrage, telling Newsweek: “It’s hard to find an adjective strong enough to characterize a president who has such contempt for honesty.”

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Charles P. Pierce

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.