March 17^th

Mona Charen has her usual harsh words for the President today and quite naturally commends the 47 Republican signers of the letter to Iran. She remarks that the President said it was ironic that the Senators were on the same side as the “supposed” Iranian hardliners (her quotes). “Supposed” hardliners Mona? Does that imply the Ayatollah Khomeini is not really a hard liner? She claims that comments about the letter were “snorting and pawing of earth;” how colorful. If you have a weak case you can at least use colorful language in your attempt to make it.

She claims that President Obama’s appeal to Congress to authorize airstrikes is an “abrupt about face;” of course it isn’t. The President has asked for this sort of authorization before but Congress hasn’t wanted to grant it. If these airstrikes get our military into trouble Congress wants clean hands. They remember agreeing to the Invasion of Iraq and everyone, including Hillary Clinton would like a revote! The President has said that he doesn’t require Congressional approval for airstrikes but that the people’s representatives should be involved.

Charen then spends an entire column of print on what she says are the “most consequential and catastrophic of Obama’s lies” citing The President’s repeated comments that Iran should not have the bomb. There are three extended quotations to this effect. Then follows some references to a number of right wing pundits who, she declare, have “documented the President’s true wish—for a detente with Iran paving the way for nuclear status.” This documentation consists largely of innuendo and many, many words; it is reminiscent of the documentation Giuliani presented to show that the President doesn’t love America.  Mona apparently sees no difference between nuclear status, which, for example, Japan has; and having a nuclear bomb which Japan hasn’t. A little physics never hurt anybody.

Finally, there is an adage in political investigation called, “Follow the money.”  Who might benefit from throwing a wrench into the negotiations with Iran? If you have been following the oil market you know that the price of crude oil has had a very significant drop; it had been about 100 dollars a barrel and now it is below 50 dollars a barrel. This drop is the result of overproduction in excess of 1.25 million barrels a day; as you might imagine this drop has had a catastrophic effect on oil stocks and on employment in oilfields, particularly in Texas. Losing money can irritate the high rollers who hold oil stocks. If an agreement is reached with Iran and sanctions are lifted Iran will send another million barrels a day to the oil market. Can you think of any politician who would prefer not to have that happen? I can; I can think of several.