WASHINGTON INSIGHT

THANKS ANYWAY: Republicans may have viewed Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh as a big-spending devil, but Walsh had his admirers, it seems. In the month before Walsh decided to close his nearly six-year-old probe, his office was flooded with fan mail. Some appeared to be from an organized mailgram campaign, but a substantial number of the 800 letters were handwritten. . . . “In a sea of darkness, you are a beacon of light,” a Salt Lake City law student told the 80-year-old Walsh. And a man from Boulder, Colo., praised Walsh’s “courageous efforts . . . on behalf of justice and true democracy.”