Says it all, really.
https://twitter.com/jason_howerton/status/687314778243465216
Annnnd your tax money is helping to defray the costs for that, too. Why am I bringing that particular insult up? Because the alternative is me throwing breakable things at the wall. Which still sounds like a plausible coping strategy, honestly.
I agree with Instapundit: it’s very interesting how the Wall Street Journal buried the lede in their article about how our new best buddies the Iranians are merrily off arresting reformers in advance to what the Iranian regime calls an ‘election’ and the rest of us would cause a ‘farce.’ You see, we could have done something about it several years ago. But toppling the theocratic regime then might have interfered with our delicate negotiations with that regime. No, really, this is what passed for thinking with those people in the White House:
Mr. Obama and his advisers decided to maintain silence in the early days of the 2009 uprising. The Central Intelligence Agency was ordered away from any covert work to support the Green Movement either inside Iran or overseas, said current and former U.S. officials involved in the discussions.
“If you were working on the nuclear deal, you were saying, ‘Don’t do too much,’ ” saidMichael McFaul, who served as a senior National Security Council official at the White House before becoming ambassador to Russia in 2012.
(H/T: Ed Driscoll over at Instapundit) In case you were wondering, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton feels really, really bad now about how her State Department decided to let Iranian reformers slowly twist in the wind (note, by the way, that that’s not always a metaphor when you’re talking about the Iranian regime). It’s at times like these that one is thankful for the existence of Yes, Prime Minister. That show always had a clip that can be used to brilliantly illustrate Governments Acting Badly:
I laugh, so that I may not cry.
Moe Lane
I cannot grasp why Dana Milbank cannot grasp this.
My Post colleague Jason Rezaian, the paper’s Tehran bureau chief, has been languishing in an Iranian jail for 15 months on bogus charges of espionage. He was put on secret trial by a kangaroo court. On Sunday, Iranian state TV reported that he had been convicted.
And Obama said . . . nothing.
Jason Rezaian was in Barack Obama’s way. Oh, sure, if Obama could snap his fingers and release Rezaian he would have. …Probably. But the Iranians clearly want Rezaian convicted, and the President wants a deal with Iran more than the Iranians themselves do, apparently, and… well. I don’t think that the President is an actual sociopath. He’s just, ah, not very thoughtful of others.
(H/T: @NathanWurtzel) The New York Times apparently had one mission: use the word ‘Jewish’ as many times as it took to associate that word with opposition to the Iran deal.
“Jewish?” http://t.co/FeatxcsXTr
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) September 10, 2015
Despite the fact that, as the NYT itself noted, more Jewish Democratic legislators support the Iran deal than oppose it. Now, I think that supporting the Iran deal is stupid, on general principles, and general secular principles at that. But since the NYT is determined to drag religion into this whole, dreary mess, I have to ask: just what benefit do Jewish Democrats get from being Democrats? They’re certainly not avoiding becoming the subject of NYT hit pieces!
Of course: “Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz came out in support of the Iran nuclear deal on Sunday…” I’ll spare you the rest of the article, because it’s largely an uncritical acceptance of Wasserman Schultz’s reasons for rewarding Iran for its decades-long support of terrorism. The truth of the matter? She was told to support it by President Barack Obama; and Debbie Wasserman Schultz does what’s she’s told. The woman has nowhere else to go and nothing else to do; DNC chair is as high as she’ll ever, ever go. And even that can be taken away from her.
So… whatever the President says, eh?
Well, this is interesting: “Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz blocked consideration of a resolution at the party’s summer meeting that would have praised President Obama and backed the his nuclear deal with Iran, The Washington Post reported Saturday, citing unnamed sources.” Probably irrelevant, but still interesting. It makes one wonder how the Iran deal is doing in the Democrats’ internal polling, at the very least. Continue reading DNC trying to insulate itself from Iran disaster. Or maybe just Debbie Wasserman Schultz is.
On the news that two freshman Democrats will oppose the Iran deal:
Biggest surprise? There are Freshmen Dems https://t.co/Td2YGxL2IH
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) August 25, 2015
Feel the burn.
Oh, my. “House Democrats on the fence about the White House’s proposed nuclear deal with Iran will be asked next week to close ranks and get behind the president.” (H/T: Instapundit)In case nobody’s ever mentioned this: one of the jobs of the executive branch is to try to minimize the number of times that it has to potentially embarrass fellow-party members from the legislative branch like this. I mean, I understand that it’s sometimes necessary – read, ‘convenient.’ Or possibly even ‘fun’ – for the President to give Congress the shaft like this, same side or no. But Barack Obama already got his Big One with Obamacare. That fumble-fingered rolling disaster on stilts is still blighting Democratic careers. President Obama shouldn’t be greedy like this.
Full points, though, for Obama finding something that could still hurt Congressional Democrats. I would have figured that that well would be dryer than a San Joaquin Valley farm after the deep ecologists were done diverting all the water. Guess I underestimated our President’s dioxin-like powers when it comes to blighting Democratic hopes…
Moe Lane
The phrase that CNN should be looking for here is ‘stunning rebuke:’
Senate backers of a bill the White House fears could dismantle a potential nuclear deal with Iran are closing in on a veto-proof threshold of support.
[snip]
The bill already has nine Democratic co-sponsors and a handful of other Democrats have either expressed support or remain open to backing the bill. When combined with the Senate Republicans and one independent who support the legislation, that leaves backers just four shy of the 67 needed to sustain the veto that Obama has promised.
I despise the Iranian regime. Persians are generally notably undeserving of the regime that they’ve been saddled with:
Americans in Iran are generally regarded with a degree of skepticism, but not for the reason you might think. Iranians want to know what you’re doing in Iran, not because they suspect you of plotting a coup, but because they know American passport holders could spend their vacations anywhere else on earth (give or take a few tin-pot communist police states), and feel sorry for you.
Continue reading Quote of the Day, The Washington Free Beacon Visits Iran edition.