The letter 47 members of the U.S. Senate signed and sent to the Iranian leaders in an effort to scuttle the president's nuclear agreement talks with Iran is telling on so many fronts.
The letter's first tell, of course, is the proof it provides for the ultra-right's gaping lunacy.
The second, without question, is the proof that Republicans hate President Obama more than they love this country.
(Oh, yeah, wasn't it Republicans just a couple of weeks ago who rallied around another ridiculous GOP assertion that the president "doesn't love America"?)
The debacle began with Sen. Bob Corker's "bipartisan" effort to get Congressional input sooner rather than later on a deal with Iran. An agreement with Iran would not require immediate congressional action because Obama has the power to lift sanctions he imposed under his executive authority and to suspend others imposed by Congress. But permanently lifting those imposed by Congress, as Iran has sought, would eventually require a vote.
The talks, by the way, are still talks -- not a deal by any stretch. So this is all political grandstanding, embarrassing and with potentially far-reaching overtones.
Corker reportedly was trying to build enough bipartisan support for the measure that lawmakers could override a presidential veto. But then the Republicans -- trying to show themselves yet again -- imploded. (Wouldn't you have loved to have been a little bird on Corker's desk as this unfolded?)
Discussions moved from Corker's effort to the egregious letter, sparked by the misguided brashness of freshman Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who suggested and reportedly penned the "open letter to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran." The letter condescendingly suggests that this Congress and the next president will simply undo anything Obama approves.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden, a Senate veteran of more than three decades and a former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he could recall no other instance in which senators had written to the leaders of another country, "much less a foreign adversary," to say the president had no authority to strike a deal with them.
"This letter, in the guise of a constitutional lesson, ignores two centuries of precedent and threatens to undermine the ability of any future American president, whether Democrat or Republican, to negotiate with other nations on behalf of the United States," Biden said. "Honorable people can disagree over policy. But this is no way to make America safer or stronger."
Retired Major Gen. Paul D. Eaton gave the letter an even tougher review: "I would use the word mutinous," he said, noting that former soldiers such as Cotton should have known better than to try to big-foot the commander and chief.
But perhaps the thing that should bother us most about this letter is the very flippancy of it.
It is as though these congressional clowns believe the things that give rise to punditry and online comments here are things that play well on the stages of war and peace and true global-stakes negotiations. Come on, guys. It is stupid-but-somewhat OK if you want to denigrate your president because he doesn't look like you. But make that your opinion, and do not confuse your political opinion with studied diplomatic action on a global stage involving real and grave American threats.
Cotton and some of the letter writers defended their missive, saying Congress needs to weigh in on a deal that isn't good enough (never mind that it's not even done yet). But even letter-signing Sen. John McCain has since said he thought the letter largely was circulated partly in jest while Congress was in a hurry to get out of Washington ahead of a snowstorm and maybe it wasn't such a good move.
It was a move of 47 idiots who shame us in Washington.
Suppose 47 members of the Congress had sent such a letter to Castro during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Now you decide: Who doesn't love America?