March 10^th

We now have 47 new residents of Foggy Bottom, new Secretaries of State, all Republican. Well, not really; they just think they are now in Foggy Bottom. They have written a brief letter to the Iranian leadership declaring that any agreement reached only with President Obama and not approved by them can be “reversed by a stroke of the pen.” The list of bold signatures was longer than the condescending letter which began by declaring that perhaps the Iranians did not understand our constitutional system. It’s not altogether certain that these Senators understand it either!

 The leader of this rump bunch is Senator Thomas Cotton a newcomer to the Senate; he is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He has served, as an officer of course, in both Iraq and Afghanistan and he is accustomed to being noticed! He has managed to get forty-six other Republican signatures to this brief didactic letter on the Constitution. It is interesting to note that Cotton could not get all of the Republican Senators to sign on and he got not one Democrat; so much for the new boy attempting to reach across the aisle. That sort of thing is only expected of Presidents.

This effort skirted narrowly around the letter of the Logan Act while violating the spirit of it.  The Logan Act prohibits unauthorized American citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. Its purpose was to avoid having citizens undercut government efforts to deal with foreign powers. (In 2007 Nancy Pelosi met with Syria’s dictator Assad in spite of President Bush requesting that she not do it. The Republicans howled about that. Now the roles are reversed.)

Senator Cotton, true to his militaristic associations, has recommended that we provide Israel with B-52 bombers and a supply of Bunker Busting Bombs. He has not suggested that we supply Israel with additional nuclear weapons, but that my come. He recently was an honored guest at the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) meetings. These folks promote and profit by more government defense spending.  Senator Cotton is very popular with them. He has their full support, and potentially their massive funding for his campaigns.  While he advocates much more defense spending he remains very silent about how it should be paid for. He is a good Republican after all. Perhaps we should send Cotton a copy of “Dr. Strangelove or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.” But that might encourage him. He might not see the movie as a dark comedy.

During his Senate campaign he said that ISIS and Mexican drug cartels joining force to attack Arkansas was an urgent problem. One wag has suggested that he is Sarah Palin with a Harvard degree. I think Sarah is smarter than that!