“Upending The Status Quo”: How Obama Is Shrewdly Using Partisanship To Sideline Netanyahu And Save The Iran Nuclear Deal
The conventional wisdom is that partisanship in Washington, D.C., is one of the biggest obstacles to solving America’s most entrenched problems, from fixing the immigration system to closing the inequality gap. But if the fallout from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s forthcoming address to Congress is any indication, partisanship can be a pretty useful tool when it comes to upending the status quo.
Throughout the controversy, the White House has been happy to run its relationship with Netanyahu through the partisan vortex, helping splinter a bipartisan consensus that was once the most potent domestic threat to a U.S. rapport with Iran — a deal that would constitute the crowning accomplishment of President Obama’s foreign policy legacy.
Of course, Netanyahu has himself to blame more than anyone. By accepting an invitation from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to essentially hammer the administration before a joint session of Congress, without notifying the White House or the State Department, he took his longstanding disdain for Obama to new heights. When even Fox News anchors are questioning your treatment of the president, this may be a sign you have crossed a line.
He exacerbated his problems by rejecting an invitation from Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) to privately meet with Democrats, in what they said was an attempt to “balance the politically divisive invitation from Speaker Boehner.” Netanyahu explained that the meeting would “compound the misperception of partisanship regarding my upcoming visit,” but it seems his rejection accomplished that just fine on its own.
“Since when does an Israeli prime minister say no to a meeting with Democrats?” bemoaned a former Israeli official to The New York Times. And referring to Durbin and Feinstein, he said, “By the way, their Israeli voting record is impeccable. Not good, not very good, impeccable.”
This gets to the crux of the problem for Obama, as he potentially heads into the final stretch of a years-long attempt to reach a deal on Iran’s controversial nuclear program. He not only has to fend off opposition from Republicans, but staunch pro-Israel members of his own party, some of whom seem intent on passing additional sanctions on Iran to scuttle any deal. The problem is so acute that, as recently as January, Obama faced the prospect of a united Congress overriding his veto for the first time in his presidency.
But that has changed. By aligning himself so plainly with the GOP, Netanyahu may have made it impossible for Democrats to join the Republicans. As Dov Zakheim writes at Foreign Policy, “Netanyahu’s determination to address Congress has all but destroyed any chance the Hill’s passing new sanctions and overriding a presidential veto. The deal will therefore go ahead.”
The Obama administration appears to realize this, taking the fight to Netanyahu in a highly public way. The White House made clear it would snub Netanyahu, saying both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden would not meet with him. It still has not said who (if anyone) will be attending the annual summit this weekend of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby. [Update: Rice and Samantha Powers, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., will attend.] Then this week, National Security Advisor Susan Rice said Netanyhu’s speech was “destructive” to U.S.-Israeli relations — not “unhelpful” or any other boilerplate diplomatic language, but “destructive.”
Then Secretary of State John Kerry used his testimony on Wednesday to the House Foreign Affairs Committee to remind everyone that Netanyahu supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Never mind that Kerry was for it before he was against it — he noted that Netanyahu is a hysterical hawk and associated the Israeli prime minister with the most divisive foreign policy issue of the last generation. After all, everyone knows that there is little rank-and-file Democrats hate more than the Iraq War and those who egged the Bush administration on. (Kerry’s attack was all the more remarkable given the fact that his friendship with Netanyahu goes back to the 1970s.)
This is all bad news for those who believe that a U.S. accord with Iran would spell doom for Israel. But for those who believe that diplomacy and negotiations are far better than the alternatives, they might have partisanship to thank.
By: Ryu Spaeth, The Week, February 27, 2015
“A Typical Republican Trick”: Gun Nuts Deploy Rand Paul And Ted Cruz For Cynical Political Scheme
Earlier this week the Senate voted 82-12 to open debate on the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act, a measure introduced by Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan that “aims to preserve federal lands for hunting, fishing and shooting” and had over 20 Republican co-sponsors. It also would “amend the Toxic Substances Control Act, preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating ammunition and fishing equipment that may contain lead.” Sounds … lovely. What it really is, though, is a vehicle for an endangered red-state Democrat such as Kay Hagan to bring something home to brag about.
And that’s why it had to die on Thursday, in a spectacularly cynical yet all-too-common flameout during amendment.
Republicans, who agreed with the bill in spirit but, more pertinently, knew that it might help Kay Hagan win reelection, pulled off a typical trick: trying to attach a number of insane gun lobby amendments to the bill that would force Hagan and other red-state Democrats to cast difficult votes.
Sen. Tom Coburn’s amendment would limit “the circumstances under which veterans can be denied access to firearms because of mental illness.” Sen. Ted Cruz’s “would allow expanded interstate transport of ammunition and firearms.” And then, there’s beloved hero-Sen. Rand Paul, who thinks this hunting and fishing bill represents the latest perfectly reasonable opportunity to strip Washington, D.C., of all its gun laws.
Rand’s proposed amendment to the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act would repeal the registration requirement, end the ban on semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, expand the right to carry guns outside the home and protect the right to carry guns on federal land in D.C. and elsewhere in the country. In essence, the bill would eliminate the District’s local gun laws, leaving only federal firearms law to regulate gun ownership and use in the city.
(You’ve got to love the way Republicans casually introduce amendments to overhaul laws set by the local government of the District of Columbia. Oh, here’s a little amendment to get rid of all your gun laws. Oh, here’s a quick note I drew up to keep marijuana criminalized in your little town of sin. Non-voting Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, of course, is never consulted on these things, but members of Congress do seek her out when they want to bitch about the traffic. Anyway, this is an aside, which is why it’s in parentheses.)
Once Coburn et al. drafted their amendments, pro-gun control Democrats decided to retaliate. “If we open this to a gun debate, we’re going to hear both sides,” Sen. Dick Durbin said earlier in the week. And so he drew up an amendment to “stiffen the penalty for straw purchases of guns to 15 years in prison,” while Sen. Richard Blumenthal offered one that “would temporarily take guns away from people who commit domestic violence and have a restraining order placed against them.”
And so Harry Reid blocked amendments, Republicans withdrew their support, and the measure went down on a 41-56 cloture vote this morning. This is all well and good according to the Gun Owners of America, a lobby that had pushed for the Republican amendment flood to what it called “a do-nothing, reelection bill for Harry Reid’s cronies.”
We weep not, reader, for the demise of the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2014. The nation will survive without it. But if a bill that essentially says “WE LIKE HUNTING AND FISHING” gets bogged down in an amendment battle about whether or not to have any gun control laws anymore and then dies, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to begin the August recess right now and extend it through Election Day.
By: Jim Newell, Salon, July 11, 2014
“The Senate Comity Brigade Was Wrong”: Democratic Activists Urging Filibuster Reform For Presidential Appointments Were Right
I wrote a few days ago about how the Supreme Court’s decision to bar recess appointments made with less than a 10-day break in Senate proceedings increases the importance of controlling Congress.
But it also proves again that Democratic activists urging filibuster reform for Presidential appointments were right, and the status-quo-ante comity-obsessed Senators were wrong.
Now the Democrats who supported changing the rules are rightly taking plaudits for their success:
Democrats say the decision Thursday to rebuke Obama’s 2012 appointments to the National Labor Relations Board has made their change to Senate rules seem remarkably prescient. That change made it easier for the Senate to confirm Obama’s nominees, transforming recess appointments — a tactic to get around the chamber’s hurdles — into something of a relic.
That shift has already allowed Senate Democrats to squeeze through several nominees who might have been defeated under the old framework.
“Clearly this president has faced more opposition for even routine appointments, let alone important lifetime appointments like the judiciary. I’m sorry we had to change the rules and it’s created some pain in our Senate that’s still there,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “But there had to be a way for this president to lead.”
The language used by Durbin here is still odd. It has “created some pain” in “our” Senate? Too often, the language used by Senators to describe the upper chamber is reminiscent of a private drinking club or children’s clubhouse. It isn’t. Whatever advantage there might have been in the past to friendly interactions between Senators across party lines to accomplish national goals has long been erased by hardline partisanship.
That’s largely because movement conservatives largely purged northern Rockefeller Republicans from their ranks, and because the old Dixiecrats who liked New Deal policies as long as they didn’t benefit minorities too much are gratefully a relic of the past. So on most issues not related to national security, there’s frankly very little reason for Senators to “reach across the aisle” anymore.
The clubby comity so prized by Senators now serves little purpose beyond the worst kind of bipartisanship on behalf of wealthy corporate interests and military contractors. It would be far better for Senators to worry more about how well their own views match those of their constituents, than how well they get along with one another.
By: David Atkins, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, June 28, 2014
“Dumb, Pathetic And Predictable”: Karl Rove’s Limitless Capacity For Self-Pity
Nearly three years ago, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) noticed a problem with Karl Rove’s attack operation, American Crossroads. The group sought and received tax-exempt status from the IRS, but it was clearly a partisan political operation, not a “social welfare” group, raising vast sums from anonymous donors. The senator urged the tax agency to investigate whether Crossroads deserved the generous tax benefit.
Rove, who in 2005 accused Durbin of trying to kill American troops by criticizing George W. Bush, apparently holds a grudge.
Rove unloaded with both barrels on the Illinois Democrat, blasting him in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News and in a column in The Wall Street Journal. Rove is charging that Durbin’s sending a letter in 2010 to Internal Revenue Service officials, asking them to investigate American Crossroads, was nothing less than a bid to “silence conservatives.”
“What was going on is obvious: Mr. Durbin wanted the IRS to silence conservatives,” Rove wrote. … “[I]n the glare of public attention, using the IRS to cripple or destroy opponents looks corrupt. Abuse of power always is.”
There’s a near-constant strain of self-pity and victimization that underscores Rove’s approach to politics, which makes this new argument rather predictable. Nevertheless, on the merits, the argument is also quite dumb.
I can appreciate why the IRS controversy offers Republican media personalities an attractive excuse for self-indulgence, settling old scores against perceived enemies, but neither Durbin nor any other Democratic officials tried to “silence” anyone. The entire line of attack is nonsense.
In 2010, Durbin saw Rove’s group flouting a loophole in the tax law, taking advantage of a tax benefit it almost certainly was not entitled to. Durbin didn’t say American Crossroads shouldn’t exist, and certainly didn’t argue that the attack operation lacks the right of free speech, but simply said the group did not deserve to be tax-exempt and asked the IRS to take a closer look. (It’s unclear if the IRS acted on the request.)
If Rove wants to argue that his political group deserves to be tax-exempt, fine, let’s have the debate. But that’s not an argument the Republican pundit wants to have. Instead, it’s better for fundraising and base-mobilization for Rove to use his media platform to complain, “Dick Durbin was mean to me three years ago.”
It’s misleading; it’s based on a faulty premise; and it’s kind of pathetic.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 31, 2013
Share This Blog
mykeystrokes.com- “The Unrelenting Hostility Of Washington’s Courtier Press”: The Media’s Crusade Of Scandals Against Hillary Clinton July 28, 2016
- “Endorsing This Philistine”: The Christian Right Has Surrendered To Trump July 24, 2016
- “Cop Killers Serve No Cause”: It’s Getting To The Point Where No Lives Matter July 24, 2016
mykeystrokes.com 