They were only five words, and rather bland ones at that. But they were among the most self-damaging the President of the U.S. could have uttered. "I was not fully informed," Ronald Reagan told the reporters he summoned to a special briefing last Tuesday. In an attempt to defend himself from suspicion of complicity in the biggest scandal to threaten Washington since Watergate, he thus highlighted the most fundamental flaw in his stewardship of the presidency, one that could undermine his effectiveness for the remaining two years of his term.
More immediately shocking, to be sure, were the other matters that...