July 31^st

George Will is posturing again. A few columns ago George mentioned the “clerisy” in his column. For George words allow him more often to preen than to communicate. Today he claims that “With the Iran deal Obama makes bad history.” Yes, it’s all about the agreement with Iran. In disparaging President Obama George ignores some facts.

Will claims that the Iran agreement, “…comprehensively abandons the original goal of dismantling the infrastructure of its (Iran’s) nuclear weapons program.” It does no such thing! The number of centrifuges is reduced to a fraction of the current level and similar restrictions apply elsewhere as well. He goes on to deride the CIA’s record of countries going nuclear. One they didn’t miss, and Will never mentions, is Israel’s development of nuclear weapons. “US News and World Report” claims that Israel ranks just behind India in the number of nuclear weapons available. Their conventional army and air force are far superior to any combination of Middle East forces too, poor Israel!

Will finally shows a glimmer of understanding. He recognizes that the population of Iran is young and cannot be isolated so perhaps the agreement will keep the peace long enough for the political change in Iran we all hope for, Will says,  “…technologies make nations porous to outside influences; intellectual autarky is impossible.” (Will is at it again; Autarky is an economic term from the 1930s meaning self-sufficient. I looked it up.) Will claims that this is a “slender reed” and indeed it is but it is much better than more thousands of dead people and that is the alternative.

Will believes that the best reason for rejecting the agreement is, “Obama’s long record of disdain for Congress—recess appointments when the Senate was not truly in recess…” There were all of three of those and SCOTUS disallowed them. So the best reason for risking a bloody war is to “rebuke Obama?” I realize that the right has tried many ways to “rebuke Obama;” they have claimed he was foreign born (Indeed the current leader of the race for the Republican presidential nomination accused the president of being foreign born.) Forty-seven Senators signed a message to Iran claiming any agreement with the President is futile because they will reject it…and Will asserts “Obama’s long record of aggressive disdain for Congress,” Oh, who is disdaining whom?

Will should learn some very recent history. Here is the record:  Recess appointments made: Obama 32, Reagan 232, and G.H.W. Bush 171. Then consider Executive orders: Obama 205, Reagan 381 and G.H.W. Bush 291. Perhaps Will would like to defend the Senate’s taking 167 days to confirm Loretta Lynch’s appointment as Attorney General. Was it because she was black? Was it because she was a woman, or was it because of the greatest of all right wing sins, she was a black woman? However it was, it will require some explanation, probably during the next Presidential debate.