"President Barack Obama secured a legacy-defining victory," The Associated Press gushed Thursday, "as Senate Democrats clinched the necessary votes to ensure the Iran nuclear agreement survives in Congress."
Some legacy.
A bare minimum number of Democrats - just over one-third of the Senate - is enough to sustain a presidential veto should the nuclear agreement receive a thumbs down from the bipartisan majority that opposes it. And the scale-tipping signal came from a retiring senator, Democrat Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who won't have to face the consequences of her vote next year.
Bipartisan majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House oppose the deal. The American public disapproves of it, nearly six in 10 people, according to one poll. But it always depends on how you pose the issue.
Israel, our most valuable and threatened Middle East ally, is also solidly against it. And a group of former top military officials and intelligence analysts released a report saying the deal would embolden Iran to increase its support for anti-U.S. terrorist groups across the Middle East.
Had this been a treaty, 67 votes would have been necessary to approve it. But it is an executive agreement, the type of deal through which nine out of 10 international negotiations are concluded (but usually not on an issue so pivotal). Of course, it's also the same kind of agreement Obama has used throughout his presidency to go around Congress and get his way.
Had Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., not opened his mouth, nobody would be talking about who's for or against the agreement because the people of the United States would not have had a say even by their elected representatives. When Secretary of State John Kerry and his negotiators concluded the deal and the president signed off on it, it would have been done.
The former Chattanooga mayor's bipartisan bill, if nothing else, forced testimony on the deal, prompted five months of media attention to its unworthy parameters and made senators declare their conscience on the dangerous agreement.
Describing the Iran deal as a "legacy-defining victory" for Obama may not be the praise it is meant to be, as not all legacies are good. Nixon's Watergate legacy and the Clintons' scandal legacy come to mind.
And if Iran cheats on the nuclear agreement, as it almost assuredly will (and as it has on past deals), and if Iran uses its freed-up sanctions money to fund anti-U.S. terrorist groups, as it almost certainly will, this legacy will have no upside for the president and plenty of downsides for his successor.