Conservatives' Freakout Over Iran Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With Iran http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/iran-is-pure-political-theater “Playing politics” is an accusation that gets thrown around a lot in politics, and it’s usually unfair. Oh sure, there is plenty of hyperbolic rhetoric and people exaggerating how much umbrage they’re taking, but by and large most political theater is in service of ideas that people, both on the left and right, actually believe in. Kim Davis and Mike Huckabee are irritatingly self-aggrandizing, after all, but no one doubts that they actually want to stop gay couples from marrying. But as Republicans have comically overwrought meltdowns over Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, it’s hard to shake the sense that, for a lot of them, this is pure political theater, being conducted not because of any serious convictions about the deal itself but simply to stir up irrational fears to be harped on for the rest of the election season. (The election, heaven help us, is still 14 months away.) Obama’s plan looks like a done deal, but now the clowns are spilling out, honking their noses and trying to get attention by screaming about how we’re all going to die now. As Nick Corasanti of the New York Times reports, a veritable who’s-who of unserious but self-important demagogues, led by known foreign policy experts Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, have descended on D.C. to impart their collective wisdom about diplomacy, which appears to amount to implying that the president’s testicles aren’t big enough. Ted Cruz in particular seems to think that this is his moment to prove to the doubters that he is a big tough guy who gets things done because he’s tough and that’s what tough guys do. He, along with other House conservatives, is leading a plan to derail the deal by harping on legal technicalities, with Rep. Peter Roskam fully admitting it’s a “process argument.” Now we have Rep. Louie Gohmert threatening to resign over all this. Clearly, Congress will be bereft of this leading luminary who graces this country with conspiracy theories about Jade Helm, how ISIS is being snuck in by Mexican drug dealers, and how God will destroy the country for legalizing same-sex marriage. In other words, two of the worst Republican traits of the past 20 years—pointless obstructionism for the sole purpose of sticking it to the Democrats and mindless demagoguery about the nefarious Middle Eastern threat to convince voters of your manhood—are joining together to create a massive, misshapen beast that represents everything that’s gone wrong with politics in the 21st century. Every below-the-belt move is up for grabs. “Republicans in both chambers are discussing the possibility of voting on Friday, Sept. 11, to put maximum political pressure on Democrats, according to senior GOP sources,” Politico reported on Tuesday. Clearly, Republicans believe that Americans have forgotten about how well it went last time they decided to exploit that particular national tragedy in order to stoke conflict with a Middle Eastern country in hopes that Americans would mistake them for John Wayne. They’re probably not wrong; Americans can and often do have short memories about embarrassing lapses in all common sense and judgment of the sort that ushered in the Iraq War. But it’s important not to forget, because that entire debacle is exactly what you get when you let cynical Republicans get away with romanticizing international conflict to bolster their own tough-guy reputations. Here is a news item from September 7, 2002, when the Bush administration was rolling out their spiffy new plan to invade Iraq: The White House decided, they said, that even with the appearance of disarray it was still more advantageous to wait until after Labor Day to kick off their plan. ''From a marketing point of view,'' said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort, ''you don't introduce new products in August.'' A centerpiece of the strategy, White House officials said, is to use Mr. Bush's speech on Sept. 11 to help move Americans toward support of action against Iraq, which could come early next year. So that worked out well, right? Luckily for us, one of the main architects of that plan, Dick Cheney, has been running around telling everyone that Obama’s plan will be the death of us. “This agreement will give Iran the means to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland," Cheney argued in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. "I know of no nation in history that has agreed to guarantee that the means of its own destruction will be in the hands of another nation, particularly one that is hostile." A protester was then removed from the room for sensibly pointing out that Cheney is simply “warmongering” and that people “should not be listening to him.” It’s no secret why Republicans love portraying Democrats as weak and treacherous when it comes to foreign policy, and particularly when it comes to hostile Islamic countries. It feeds right into the base’s worst instincts for empty masculine posturing and fear-based politics. It’s particularly salient to conservatives now, as painting Hillary Clinton as some kind of weak-willed surrender monkey, mostly by dropping the word “Benghazi” a lot, is clearly going to be the centerpiece of the anti-Clinton strategy. But this entire display should, if nothing else, be a reminder of why it’s so critical that Obama, a bona fide grown-up as well as a Democrat, needs to get this deal secured before he’s out of the White House, to shut out any possibility that the people who are just playing politics with our national security will get more of a say in the process. Amanda Marcotte is a freelance journalist who writes frequently about liberal politics, the religious right and reproductive health care. She's a prolific Twitter villain who can be followed @amandamarcotte.
^^^ don't agree with that article. I think it has everything to do with Iran. Iran can't be trusted, period. No deal is allowed, however really good the deal is. Instead of lies, deceit, mis-representations, they should just come out and said, their worldview is that Iran can never be negotiated with, and absolutely cannot be given a chance to strengthen in any way, at any costs, including cost of war. No benefits to the US and the world is greater than the cost of an Iran becoming an inch stronger in any way. And so, they likely know the deals capabilities, but they must lie and mis-represent knowing that their followers wouldn't know a difference and even if they do, probably wouldn't care. Of course, it's also very possible that they are so emotionally involved and outraged, that their distorted mind becomes their reality and they can't ever see straight.
The first sentence of the article says everything you need to know about the intended audience's grasp on world affairs: "David Cameron, François Hollande and Angela Merkel are, respectively, the prime minister of Britain, the president of France and the chancellor of Germany." I'm willing to bet articles about Ricky Bobby or Dale Earnhardt Jr. don't open with "Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a racing automobile driver." at any rate ... conservatives be like "but Netanyahu..."
That's not the first sentence of the article - it's a description of the authors. That's pretty standard in lots of op-eds not written by in-house staff.
Dude the article isn't about David Cameron, François Hollande and Angela Merkel. It's FROM THEM. I swear, the intelligence level here is dropping faster than the price of oil.
Scoreboard! Senate Dems Block GOP Move To Embarrass Obama On Iran Deal WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats voted to uphold the hard-fought nuclear accord with Iran on Thursday, overcoming ferocious GOP opposition and delivering President Barack Obama a legacy-making victory on his top foreign policy priority. A disapproval resolution for the agreement fell two votes short of the 60 needed to move forward as Democratic and independent senators banded together against it. Although House Republicans continued to pursue eleventh-hour strategies to derail the international accord, the outcome in the Senate guaranteed that the disapproval legislation would not reach Obama's desk. As a result the nuclear deal will move forward unchecked by Congress, an improbable win by Obama in the face of unanimous opposition from Republicans who control Capitol Hill, GOP candidates seeking to replace him in the Oval Office and the state of Israel and its allied lobbyists in the U.S. Beginning next week, Obama will be free to start scaling back U.S. sanctions to implement the agreement negotiated by Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers. The accord aims to constrain Iran's nuclear ambitions in exchange for hundreds of billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Senate Democrats vote to lift sanctions on the greatest state sponsor of terror--on eve of September 11th. That's today's Democrat Party.</p>— Christian Cámara (@Reaganista) <a href="https://twitter.com/Reaganista/status/642073186683736065">September 10, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/terrorism Above is a link of what Iranian's Facebook activities might look like in timeline
Once again we see republicans exploiting a national tragedy for political gain. But those like Mr. Camara (and Commodore) are the real Americans. (insert rolleyes here)
Random moron emits 144 characters of crap, reposted by anon idiot, on September 11. That's today's political discourse. I walked from Cedar St. this morning all the way to Bowery and then took the subway from there to Midtown. I didn't really think about twitter asshats or Netanyahu or Iran's nuclear program. I did remember when I had to make a similar walk up the FDR 14 years ago starting from the same location with a surgical mask that somebody handed out and covered in dust; I still remember it all clearly but so much has changed since then and it seems so distant now. Like I can tell you exact details about everything but it doesn't have the same emotional force, and it's probably a good thing. Rational decisionmaking works better that way. And now back to the emotion - yeah brah I just pulled 9/11 rank on you and your little twitter chica. Enjoy it suckas.
Therefore, since you believe that others that you disagree with use tragedies for political gain, it is okay for people on your end of the political spectrum to do so as well? Nice 3rd grade logic.
Can they still vote on it? If so, I think they should do their job and bring it up for a vote every 2-3 weeks.
Mass shootings and the presence of guns are 100% correlated in all cases. The Iranian Nuclear deal of 2015 and the September 11, 2001 hijackings have roughly 0% temporal or logical correlation.
And this idiot is today's conservative. Hey Commodore, thanks for another completely irrelevant tweet from some random guy.
