Looking for an 'Unprecedented' October Surprise? Nothing Tops Lawrence Walsh's 1992 Dirty Trick
By Tom Blumer
Newsbusters
October 29, 2016 | 6:42 AM EDT
FBI Director James Comey's letter to Congress indicating that the bureau has "learned of the existence of (Hillary Clinton) emails" which he concluded must be reviewed "to determine whether they contain classified information" has led to all kinds of people declaring the move an "unprecedented" October surprise.
Even some people who should know better have called it the "Mother of All October Surprises." Perhaps it ultimately will be, but as things currently stand, it's not really in the running for current champion.
The press's institutional memory is so weak, and its insistence on burying long-ago inconvenient truths is so strong, that no one I'm aware of has made a comparison to Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's indictment of former Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on October 30, 1992, and Walsh's obviously calculated decision to include a reference to incumbent President George H.W. Bush in his filing. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, who one would expect to remember its brutality and dishonesty, failed to do so in a telephone interview Friday afternoon.
Scarborough's political career began when he ran for Congress as a Republican in 1994, two years after Bill Clinton defeated Bush 41. The idea that he can be unaware of Walsh's move, which remains the Mother of All October Surprises, is virtually inconceivable.
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Note: The indictment was later thrown out by the court.
