By now, I'm going to assume that most, if not all of you, have at least heard about this. Whether you have read it or not, I encourage you to click on the link and read the full letter. It might not be a bad idea to save the link, in fact, so long as the good folks at Bloomberg's Web server preserve it. It's not every day that 47 prominent members of a major political party formally pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to a Declaration of Idiocy.
Idiocy, you ask? Why not call it a Declaration of Treason, which is what the New York Daily News called it? Or a Declaration of Unconstitutionality, per Slate? Or a Declaration of Mutiny, per a retired Army general as quoted in the Washington Post? Well, there's some real debate about whether or not the letter rises to any or all three of those levels. Some consider the letter to be a violation of the Logan Act, while others question whether it is an actual attempt to directly negotiate with a foreign government. Some question the constitutionality of members of Congress acting in a unilateral way in an area of foreign policy--except that doing so, if an error, may be a bipartisan one. And the general in question viewed the letter, authored by Senator (and Iraqi war veteran) Tom Cotton, as analogous to a violation of the chain of command. Obviously, however, an analogous violation is not an actual one.
So, why am I writing about it at all, especially since so much has been written about it already. Well, take another look at the letter, and see if you don't see it for what it ultimately is: arrogant to the point of utter stupidity.
Let's start with the opening paragraph. "It has come to our attention ... that you may not fully understand our constitutional system." Seriously, Tom? Exactly what brought that to your "attention"? Do you have contacts with the Iranian government that you haven't told anyone about, including the voters? Or did the potential misunderstanding just spring full blown from your transparently obvious desire to try out-thinking a President who, on his worst mental day, could run circles around you? You didn't need to go any farther than that to prove that it's possible to be a war hero and an attorney and still be a complete idiot.
Oh, but you do any way. You go on to say that, because of "procedural rules," every action taken in the Senate must be approved by three-fifths of the Senate. This is amazingly dumb for three reasons. First, Cotton is clearly referring to votes to end debate on a bill, which is simply a vote to end debate. Senators are then free to vote for or against the bill, whether they voted to end the debate or not. Second, the rule on voting to end debate is not a part of the Constitution--it is a rule of the Senate, subject to change with each new Congress and which has, in fact, already been modified several times without amending the Constitution. Third, and worst of all, Cotton's misstatement of Senate voting practices effectively ratifies filibusters as an acceptable form of partisan sabotage--and, without meaning to, effectively argues for eliminating them, or at least restricting their use.
But he's not done yet, folks. He goes on to underscore Republican hypocrisy on the matter of term limits, by noting that Obama will be out of office in January of 2017, "while most of us [the 47 signers] will remain in office well beyond then--perhaps decades." All that's missing from those last two words is the cuing of the evil laugh. But it does point out that Republicans only advocate term limits when they think they're having a problem getting elected to one of the political branches of government. At any rate, they might want to rethink that "decades" line. The voters might actually have something to say about that--especially if this letter becomes the beginning of a trend.
Finally, there is the transparently insincere closing paragraph, in which Cotton and his 46 co-conspirators "trust" that the letter will "enrich your knowledge of our constitutional system." This illustrates the single most deadly aspect of Republicans' attempts at foreign policy: their unwarranted belief that, because they're rich, they're smarter than anyone else. By closing with this statement, Cotton set himself and his co-conspirators up for the humiliation of being shown by the Iranian government that they already understand our constitutional system quite well. Better, in fact, than Cotton does, as they were subsequently forced to point out that Cotton's ultimate argument--that an agreement not approved by Congress could be undone "with the stroke of a pen"--is legally and factually wrong.
And the stupidity of the letter is by no means confined to its text. It has already cost the Republicans support from Democrats they might need if they are going to have any chance of forcing Obama into giving Congress an expanded role in approving any agreement that is ultimately reached (and there's yet another point: we don't even have an agreement yet, and may not even have gotten one without the release of the letter). And it revives the whole history of Republican interference in negotiations with foreign governments for partisan gain. I have already written about the efforts of Reagan officials to delay the release of American hostages to give Reagan the edge over Carter in 1980, but that might not even be the worst example.
I will have more to say about this letter in a subsequent post as a reflection of GOP strategy going forward. For the short run, however, no one can doubt that it is an utter disaster. Whether one or both of your Senators signed it (and you can take a look at the list here), I strongly urge you to contact them and let them know that, whatever else may be true about their decision to sign it, that decision was as arrogant as it was stupid--and discredits both a great nation as well as their service to it.
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