Read on Twitter
I know, what a tease, right? https://twitter.com/rickperlstein/status/1348657655473197056
REAGANLAND readers know Terry Dolan, the superlatively wicked New Right operative whom I quote saying of the operative philosophy of his National Conservative Political Action Committee, "We can lie through our teeth and the candidate we help stays clean"...
The long-memoried and well-read will know the Rest Of The Story: a closested gay in a movement that built its power through eliminationist hatred of gays, Dolan died of AIDS in late 1986. A close compatriot of his, I didn't know about until today, or perhaps I forgot....
Fellow named Carl "Spitz" Channell, who was managing a hotel in 1979 when he was recruited as a right-wing fundraiser. His activities before the ones that made him most famous included work stalling sanctions against Apartheid South Africa.
Then he became the first person convicted of a crime in the Iran-Contra scandal. That crime was fraud: he laundered money through a charity called the "National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty" to the Nicaraguan Contras.
Here are some fun alleged details of that outfit from a letter to the editor I found (I haven't confirmed independently confirmed this): https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19870904.2.112&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1
Channel "would round up the 'Blue Rinse lady donors,' arrange for limos and presidential photo opportunities for those that contributed the most for the Contras. The ladies were referred to as 'hamhocks,' 'Dogface.' 'Mrs Malleable.' etc., by Channel...."
"'Mr. Green" (The Color Of Money) was Ollie's code name." And here's where the real fun begins...
According to this 1987 piece, "some of the...$10 million raised by Channell's organization--with help from Lt. Col. Oliver North--was paid to the male companions of the group's gay executives, including Channell, for unspecified consulting services." https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/05/11/the-cautious-closet-of-the-gay-conservative/6d482f56-44ad-4540-b406-f923f096ce24/
AND: "NPR reported that one key Channell supporter was simultaneously funding what he called 'an organization to oppose the homosexual expansion," and that Channell himself had contributed to that group.'”
Died in 1990, "struck by a car on March 15 as he stood beside his car on a street in southeast Washington, according to the District of Columbia police"-- https://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/09/obituaries/carl-channell-44-fund-raiser-for-conservatives-dies-of-injuries.html
...a manner of death that polite Grey Lady strikes me as implying was a particularly selfish way to commit suicide.
BUT I HAVEN'T EVEN GOT TO MY FAVORITE DETAIL YET!!!!! Ready?
As his spokesman told the New York Times for that obituary: "He was the kind of fellow who held true to the small-town values." THE END
