POLITICS ONE, PRINCIPLE ZIP

By Edwin Cooney

As the late great GOP Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen used to intone in his deep melodious voice, “Sometimes we must all rise above principle.”  So, that’s exactly what Congressional Republicans have been doing.

It began in February when House Speaker John Boehner, without even consulting President Obama, invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of the United States Congress.  As prescribed by the distinguished Speaker (not that Mr. Netanyahu needed any priming), the topic would be the Israeli Prime Minister’s opposition to the international agreement that we and four other nations are negotiating with the Iranian government regarding its use of nuclear energy.

Obviously, neither the Israeli PM nor most Congressional Republicans trust the words or the intentions of the Iranian government.  Even worse, apparently, Congressional Republicans along with Mr. Netanyahu distrust either the intelligence or the judgment of President Obama and the leaders of four other nations who are involved in the negotiations with Iran, all of whom desire considerable leverage over Iran’s use of nuclear energy.

On the morning of Tuesday, March 3^rd, Prime Minister Netanyahu was received and heard by Congress.  Then came the second bomb in the GOP’s political arsenal, a letter composed on March 11th to the Iranians informing them that in the absence of an agreement acceptable by Congress, any such treaty could be abrogated by the United States with the stroke of a future president’s pen. (Note: That would, of course, be the pen of a future Republican President!)

Another aspect of this matter is that the American Republican elephant is sticking his long nose into the political affairs of Israel.  Such intervention is welcomed by candidate Netanyahu. However, should he be unseated in tomorrow’s election, hopefully the GOP would have the good sense to be just a little embarrassed.  I wouldn’t count on it though!

I find little principle in the GOP’s actions.  To begin with, if there is no agreement by March 31st, the negotiations are likely to stall and the status quo will remain in place.  On the other hand, if there is an agreement, it will be the kind of arrangement that automatically falls apart should Iran be caught violating its provisions.

Obviously, Prime Minister Netanyahu wants no agreement with the current Iranian government.  He wants the option to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity for energy as well as for creating nuclear weapons.

A less obvious reality is that even if GOP leaders are successful in assisting candidate Netanyahu in his re-election bid, they would ultimately be undermining their own potential authority should one of them soon wield the the presidential pen.

Both political parties have time and time again violated the idea that in foreign policy politics ought to cease at the water’s edge.  However, I can find no instance in history when the party held by Congress invited the head of a foreign government to address it, thus deliberately insulting the President of the United States.

What do you suppose would have been the Republican response had Congressional Democrats in 1987 invited Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to address it in the wake of the Iran Contra scandal?  While Democrats were sympathetic to the Ortega government, I’m guessing we might well have heard the “T” word invoked to describe Speaker Jim Wright had he extended such an invitaton. He was eventually driven from office by an outraged Newt Gingrich who in turn would himself be driven from office, guilty of Speaker Wright’s sin a decade later.  However, that’s another story for another time.

The real issue, however, is the tragedy of this Republican perfidy.  Eventually, we will elect a Republican president.  Due to the undeserved and outrageous treatment of, and contempt for, President Obama, Republicans have given permission to future presidential critics to humiliate every president from here on.

I heartily disliked Ronald Reagan and resented candidate George H. W. Bush for the way he and his minions treated Mike Dukakis during the 1988 campaign.  I felt disgust with Bill Clinton’s behavior although I voted for him twice.  I was disheartened with the election of George W. Bush.  Nevertheless, I believed then and I believe now that they deserved the inherited respect of the presidential office.

The leadership of today’s Republican party which is largely made up of the worst elements of the old Democratic Party (namely, the Sons of the old Confederacy and the Jim Crow South) is ill fitted to provide leadership to a multicultural American society.  It talks enterprise as it displays fear and loathing for almost anyone who doesn’t mirror its self-congratulatory values.  Now its treatment of President Obama is set to undermine all presidential authority, even the authority of a future Republican president.

Speaker Boehner and other Republican leaders think they’re merely showing up President Obama.  What they’re really doing is reining in the very authority they ask God to bless on every patriotic occasion -- and they don’t even get it!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED

EDWIN COONEY