From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro *** Ramping up the rhetoric: As the violence and protests escalated in Iran on Saturday, President Obama stepped up his criticism about what’s happening there. “The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching,” he said in a statement. “We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.” But the toughest domestic political rhetoric on Iran is coming from Republicans. This is one of those cases where Democrats and the White House are wondering what the reaction would be if the roles were reversed — i.e., Democrats criticizing a GOP administration’s response on foreign policy. Indeed, Republicans regularly beat up Democrats for supposedly politicizing international issues (do remember that the establishment Democratic Party didn’t start truly criticizing the situation in Iraq until two-plus years after the war began). But who’s politicizing now? Also, it’s worth noting that the criticism from Republicans is NOT universal. In fact, the GOP establishment on this issue is more divided than the coverage is suggesting.
I wish it was harder to imagine Chuck Todd writing this kind of thing with a straight face, but liberals seem to be genuinely outraged that anyone would dare criticize a sitting president on matters of foreign policy and national security. Never mind that in 2002, before the war even began, Barack Obama was calling it an attempt by the Bush administration “to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats…. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.” Fair enough, I guess he wasn’t part of the “Democratic establishment” in 2002, but how about John Kerry, in April 2003, calling for “not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States.” Maybe if Republicans used the president’s own rhetoric to attack him the MSNBC crew would be more comfortable. Republicans must bear witness to the weakness of this White House. Barack Obama must know that the world is watching — and waiting — for him to do something, anything, besides eat ice cream and play golf. The arc of the president’s drive is long, but it bends toward the sand trap of history.
