Revisionist history

Michael Tomasky has had enough.

Um, for the record. Nixon, that serious president, quite seriously and secretly bombed Cambodia in direct contravention of international law and the rules of war. This created a massive refugee crisis (in addition to creating a bunch of innocent, dead Cambodians).

The crisis was too much for the government of Lon Nol, a repressive and corrupt potentate whose repression and corruption were very much backed by Nixon and Gerald Ford. The heavy U.S. bombardment of the country, and Lon Nol’s collaboration with the United States, sent recruits running into Pol Pot’s arms; his forces had grown to number 700,000 men (10 percent of the entire population) by the time of his takeover in 1975. Neither Mark Felt nor Bob Woodward nor Carl Bernstein nor John Sirica had a thing to do with it.

Noonan presumably knows all about this, because the White House for which she scribbled, Ronald Reagan’s, backed the Khmer Rouge in the early 1980s, after the regime had completed its murderous rampage and the facts were well-known. This support -- which included voting to seat a Khmer Rouge official as Cambodia’s representative at the United Nations -- continued until 1985, when the administration finally changed course. The change came after a House foreign-affairs subcommittee -- in Democratic hands at the time, remember -- pushed for the change and voted to send aid to anti-Khmer Rouge forces.

Tomasky's larger point isn't really about the Right's attempt to rewrite the history of the 1970s, but rather the 1990s, and is worth reading as we await the next smear job of Hillary Clinton.