"...the almost slapstick response by the US forces in Panama allowing the Canal Zone to be overrun and Huele a Quemado to go into effect was a national scandal, particularly in tandem with the economic shocks that came with it. The general feeling was, is this how far the US Army has fallen since Vietnam? We can't even hold off fucking Panama? The President was adamant that his team would present a united front but the leaks to the Washington Post and New York Times were fast and furious; the Rumsfeld-Carlucci faction at the Pentagon and Langley preferred to disseminate via Bob Woodward, of all fucking people, at the Post, while Bush, Baker and, surprisingly, Cheney leaked to the Times. Effectively, it became a question of who was to blame for the Panama Crisis; was it the diplomacy leading up to Torrijos pulling out of talks, which was on Bush? Or was it the demobilization and exhaustion of the American military as a fighting force, as overseen by Rumsfeld? My take? It was a bit of both, plus a CIA that was really afraid of another Church Committee and Carl [Bernstein]'s big expose on their practices..."
- Ben Bradlee, Interview, 2002
"...on the Hill, an inquiry into how the US military was so unprepared for the operations in Panama - which by early April had secured much of the country, but now at the price of tipping neighboring states into destabilization - was also viewed as a way for various Democratic and Republican contenders for higher office to flex their muscles. As the steam for Congressional commtitees to investigate the matter gained, Secretary of State Bush's son, George W., was defeated in a landslide primary defeat by conservative Odessa Mayor Jim Reese [1], with Panama - and the candidate's father - a central matter in the race. As the GOP devolved into pro-Ford and anti-Ford factions, with the President already plainly a lame duck even before the looming midterms, Democrats were mostly coalesced around "fact finding," an amorphous term that meant one thing to Scoop Jackson, who was already lining up support for a Presidential run in 1980 as a serious, sober foreign policy specialist, and the cadre of young liberals elected in 1974 who were seeking their own champion and who detested Jackson. Before any committees could be put together, both sides needed to sort out their internecine squabbles..."
- The 70s: A Time of Crisis
[1] OTL, Bush narrowly won the primary over Reagan-backed Reese but would lose to Kent Hance in the general, the only loss of his political career. Here, his first race is a pasting, his dad is increasingly becoming PNG'd by the Reaganites as a "squish" when it comes to Panama and too much of a Ford man, and Dubya is essentially remanded to a historical footnote. Our first Presidential casualty of the butterflies from Ford's reelection!