10 years ago: Reagan’s Bind

December 12, 2003, here on slacktivist: Reagan’s Bind

Reagan’s Bind” describes the conundrum in which one is unable to explain or defend one’s actions except by ascribing them to either: A) malicious intent; or B) glaring stupidity and/or incompetence.

To be caught in Reagan’s Bind is like being pinned in wrestling, or checkmated in chess. Actually, in terms of chess, it’s a bit more like realizing that the knight placing your king in check is simultaneously threatening your queen.

I have called this “Reagan’s Bind” in keeping with the current trend of naming everything after the 40th president, but also because Ronald Reagan provided the most spectacular example of this during the Iran-Contra scandal of his second term.
The American people were shocked to be presented with hard evidence that members of the Reagan administration were not only “negotiating with terrorists,” but actually selling them weapons. What’s more, the proceeds were being used to fund other terrorists in a flagrant violation of U.S. law.

The president’s options were binary. Either he knew about these arms sales — in which case he had violated the law and his oath and was therefore unfit for office; or else this massive operation was going on right under his nose at the White House but he was oblivious — in which he was so astoundingly incompetent that he was probably still unfit for office.

The classic example of Reagan’s Bind.

Reagan pled incompetence, arguing essentially that he was an idiot, but not a crook. He had no idea this was going on in his White House, he testified.