POLITICO: Chuck Schumer's courageous vote will save Democrats

Right now there is a large scale outbreak of Kabuki theater in the Democrat party over the utterly corrupt Iran nuclear deal. Some Democrat politicians are, for reasons of survival or upward mobility in the party, positioning themselves as unprincipled opportunists valiant truth tellers and principled statesmen and are swearing to vote their beliefs rather than adhere to party loyalty.

Advertisement

A great example of this appears in POLITICO. Two long time Democrat operatives, Pat Caddell (Jimmy Carter’s pollster) and Doug Schoen (Bill Clinton’s pollster) are trying to set NY Senator Chuck Schumer up as a savior of the Democrat party that Barack Obama seems intent upon burning to the ground on his way out of the door (I am not saying this is a bad thing). They co-author an opinion piece called Schumer may save the Democrat party.

The Iran deal has potential, both because of public opinion and the way the administration is positioning itself, to hurt Democrats in much the same way that the Iranian hostage crisis did in 1980 and 1981. Should New York Senator Chuck Schumer succeed in killing the deal, he will be saving the Democrats from what appears to be a grave political mistake

For all the abuse he’s taking, Schumer may actually be protecting the Democratic Party from the real political danger inherent in Obama’s actions. The contempt that the president and John Kerry showed by taking this agreement to the UN before submitting it to Congress and the American people was reckless. They are not only thumbing their noses at the American people and Congress, but they are showing contempt for the primacy of our system of checks and balances and they could be setting up the Democratic party for years of attacks of “you caused this!” every time Iran behaves in a threatening manner.

Should Obama veto a bill blocking the Iran deal and defy the will of Congress, he would once again find himself on the wrong side of public opinion: 61 percent of voters would want a veto overridden. If a veto is sustained solely by Democrats two-thirds of respondents, including a plurality of Democrats say they would blame the Democratic party if Iran got a nuclear weapon or used the money from sanction relief to support terrorist attacks on Israel.

By contrast, Schumer’s principled stand enjoys broad support: In another part of the SAN poll, Democratic voters were asked what their senators and representatives should do when faced with difficult choices—support the president or follow their conscience if they oppose him—35 percent said that they should “trust the President and his negotiators and support their party’s leader,” while 59 percent wanted their representatives and senators to set aside party loyalties and follow their conscience on the issue at hand.

Advertisement

Charitably, this is an exercise in self-delusion. At its worst it is dishonest hackery that attempts to gaslight the American people into believing something that manifestly is not true.

Fact: The vote on the Iran nuclear deal is utterly meaningless. There will be a lot of fireworks but, in the words of someone famous but who is mostly not taught in American schools these days: “It is a tale.Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” The UN Security Council has removed sanctions. Those sanctions include conventional weapons (Russia has already closed a deal for anti-aircraft missile systems with Iran) and ballistic missiles. Money belonging to Iran that was impounded is being released. The IAEA has agreed to let Iran inspect its own facilities after a possible 24-day waiting period. In short, the international regime that was in place two months ago has been dismantled. There is nothing for Congress to vote on. This will be an exercise in preening and futility. And when it comes down to nut-cutting time Democrats who voted AGAINST the deal will vote to sustain the veto because that is how they operate.

A solid majority of the Democrat party and the clowns they elect are virulently anti-American. Voting to sustain this monstrosity and voting to prevent a veto override is what they would do naturally. If the American people really cared about this facet of the Democrat party, Barack Obama never would have been elected after that fat bag of pus, Jack Murtha (who is now frozen up to his neck in the Ninth Circle of Hell), boasted about underfunding the US military so as to increase casualties and thereby create opposition to the war in Iraq, his slow bleed strategy. But most Americans care about free stuff and so long as the Democrats provide that, they will continue to be competitive even as a nuke pops over Tel Aviv.

Advertisement

Recommended

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement