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# Posted 12:24 AM by Ariel David Adesnik

EVEN THE LIBERAL NEW REPUBLIC: Crossing partisan lines to support Republican initiatives is a time-honored tradition at TNR. That lesson was driven home earlier this evening when I sat down with a copy of the Congressional Record from 1986.

In March of that year, Congress confronted the single most historic as well as the single most divisive foreign policy vote of Reagan's second term in office: Whether or not to support $100 million of military aid to the Nicaraguan contras. Throughout the debate, Republicans cited TNR's eloquent editorial on behalf of the contras.

The 1986 contra votes (there was more than one) were far more divisive than the fall 2003 vote on Iraq. Two-thirds of the American public was against the contras. Vicious red-baiting from Pat Buchanan and the rest of the White House communications staff polarized Washington.

After a round of initial setbacks, Reagan got what he wanted. I often ask myself which side I would have voted for if given the chance. In spite of benefiting from two decades of hindsight, I still don't know the answer.

Thus, there is no moral to this story just yet. But what I will say is that inspiring and impassioned debate did not come to an end with the demise of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. The quality of the debates I have read is truly historic.

Congress had its share of fools in the 1980s (some of them still in office), but then again, it is a representative body.

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