THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 26, 1994 TAG: 9410260466
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KEITH MONROE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
Starting Monday, Oliver North returns for another engagement in the ``Doonesbury'' comic strip. As usual, he'll be co-starring with his head of security, a.k.a. Duke. It is probably only a coincidence that the Duke and Ollie Show returns on Halloween.
This time the dynamic duo are out to deal with a ``small crisis'': allegations - reported in The Virginian-Pilot and The Washington Post on Oct. 22 - of drug smuggling by the Nicaraguan rebels during the Iran-Contra affair.
The stories recounted notes in North's handwriting that suggest he was aware the Contra rebels smuggled drugs to help finance the guerrilla war North was sustaining from his staff position on the National Security Council.
North says he alerted the appropriate authorities, but the newspapers found no evidence he notified either DEA or Customs, or that he cut ties with those suspected of such activities.
In the ``Doonesbury'' version, when the names of the traffickers are revealed, Duke realizes he knows them. But only socially, he hastens to add. North professes shock at learning of their deeds. ``I thought they only smuggled guns,'' he says in the cartoon.
So how do Duke and North go about doing damage control? They scramble the disinformation team to conduct a ``media protective reaction strike.'' That consists of ignoring the issue and hitting the press for raising it because of an elite, liberal media bias.
Sounds good. But as the week ends, the present residents of the White House are left wondering why, if the media is so liberal, the Democrats have gotten worse press than their conservative predecessors. ILLUSTRATION: Clips from comic strip
by CNB