But that's not all he did. Abrams had a habit of covering up the massacres that the U.S.-funded Salvadoran military committed in the 1980s, as David Corn notes in the July 2 issue of The Nation.

Nevertheless, Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman praised Abrams as "an outstanding diplomat."

This, after Fleischer's boss, George W., appointed Abrams last week to be the director of the National Security Council's office for democracy, human rights, and international operations.

The Bushies are taking unusual care of Abrams. George W.'s dad pardoned him in 1992, and now W. is fumigating his résumé.

But for what?

Here is an admitted liar, not an outstanding diplomat.

Here is an apologist for gross human rights violations, and now he heads up an NSC office on human rights?

George W. has gone out of his way to bring back to power those who sullied our nation's reputation in Central America.

It's not just Abrams.

Bush also nominated John Negroponte to be U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. His credentials? Negroponte was U.S. Ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980s and worked closely with the military there even as it engaged in torture and assassination.

Then there's Otto Reich.

Bush has nominated him to be Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere. Under Reagan, Reich had been head of the Office of Public Diplomacy at State, where he engaged in some sleazy activities on behalf of the contras. He ghost-wrote columns for contra leaders and then sent them on to leading newspapers in the United States. A government investigation concluded that he engaged in "prohibited acts of propaganda," The New York Times reported.

Abrams, Negroponte, and Reich--quite a trio.

But maybe it'll be a quartet.

Can Oliver North's nomination be far behind?

Copyright 2001 The Progressive, Madison, WI

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