3.8.15: Knowing Your Adversaries

“Embarrassing, humiliating and very arrogant” are the words that Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) used to describe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress this past week.  Say what you will about that description, but there’s no doubt about another one of her comments, which was that no American ally would have done what he did.  Israel does enjoy a special relationship with the United States, that’s not at issue, but that the Prime Minister taking advantage of that to win re-election is deplorable.

However, in light of the above commentary, the one thing we agree with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on is that Iran is a much more dangerous adversary than ISIS.  That’s proven by the influence that Iran wields in the region – Shiites throughout the Middle East follow Iran’s lead.  Mr. Graham used to the term ‘enemy,’ which connotes that no negotiation or agreement can be reached.  Like Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Graham doesn’t want any agreement with Iran at all, but more severe sanctions and the use of military action always on the table.  Mr. Netanyahu seems to dictate the Republican view (with the exception of Senator Rand Paul who didn’t applaud enough… please) of Middle East policy.  The result of all this will be more instability in the region, which will then lead to more U.S. intervention, not less.

No one wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon, of course, but what Senator Feinstein said about needing Russia and Iran’s help in ridding Syria of the Assad regime is true.  However, that’s simply not going to happen, and it leaves you with Chuck Todd’s question about who are really the U.S.’s Arab allies in the region who are able to fight ISIS and Assad. 

Here’s the problem for the United States: it’s fighting a strategy battle in the Middle East while almost everyone else is fighting a religious war.   What that means is that the U.S. needs to greatly strength its alliances with moderate strategic partners, Jordan and the Kurds to fight ISIS.  (This column has said before that the Kurds should have their own state  - the compromise being that the Kurds don’t get any present Turkish territory.  If this upsets Turkey, so be it.)  The religious war being fought by proxies for Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively cannot include the United States so it has to stop from getting sucked into those battles, which it hasn’t managed to do.

 

But here is what’s also really messed up (understating it), that Republican politicians in Washington will follow Mr. Netanyahu’s lead lock-step, but in Missouri gubernatorial candidate Tom Schweich (R) committed suicide because of a whisper campaign that he was Jewish.   When conservative try to eviscerate the president for reminding people of the Christianity’s darker days of religious purity, they need to re-examine their collective righteousness because there a conservative political action committee (PAC) that wants religious purity in its candidates.  Senator Claire McCaskill who attended Mr. Schweich’s funeral this week stated that dark undisclosed money needs to be eliminated and that Congress should pass the Disclose Act to institute more transparency as to who is responsible for such messages.

Citizens United did put the final nail in the coffin of honesty or transparency in our politics, without a doubt.  For those who agree with the Supreme Court’s ruling to allow all this dark money in our politics don’t have the high-ground when it comes to Hilary Clinton and this e-mail scandal – that she was being illegally secretive.

 

When thinking about this, always keep in mind Amy Walter’s (from the “Cook Political Report”) notion that it is not at all about the e-mails.  It’s all about the narrative of Clinton secrecy.  Helping that along, Mr. Todd enforced the notion by saying that the Clintons follow the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Give us a break… What politician doesn’t do that?  To Mrs. Clinton’s defense, what she did is not without precedent (Colin Powell used private e-mail.) and she did not break the law.  However, did Mrs. Clinton not think that this could be problematic and just give Republicans more to dig through?   Even though the law wasn’t broken, you may with agree with Senator Feinstein that Mrs. Clinton should clarify and shed light on all this.  If so, then as The New York Times Jonathan Martin said, it must be before the announcement of her candidacy.  Then again, if she didn’t break the law, then what’s there to explain?

What’s funny about this is that we don’t blame Mrs. Clinton for setting up her own server for communication purposes while Secretary of State given how much more efficient the private sector is over government in trusting that it will work well.  When you think of it like that, it’s a good idea.  And if she did use the server for official business, has anyone just asked for access to the whole server, because that would be justified.   If she cannot do that, then you have to agree with Kathleen Parker that Mrs. Clinton has poor judgment or is hiding something.  Our feeling is that it’s a political story that the press ate right up, simply because it is about Hillary Clinton.  

 

And here’s another funny notion, slightly related.  Lindsey Graham in his interview today said that he never sends e-mail, doesn’t use it.  Mr. Graham may run for president but does he know that not using e-mail disqualifies him for the office.  Follow us here… You don’t use e-mail, which says to anyone under 35 that you are not tech savvy, don’t understand the internet or social media, and hence don’t understand American life today… why would that person vote for Lindsey Graham?  She or he wouldn’t. 

Panel: Jonathan Martin, The New York Times; Kathleen Parker, The Washington Post; Manu Raju, Politico; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report  

A Note:  Yeah, sure… Obamacare is a disaster… that’s standard critical the line, but because of Obamacare the number of uninsured has decreased in every state, which disqualifies the law as a disaster.

Oh wait; we have our facts wrong.  The uninsured has not decreased in every state as Kansas is the only state that saw an increase of 4 percent.  Kansas’s political body completely opposes the law, didn’t use the federal money to expand Medicaid, and obviously didn’t set up its own exchange.  Way to go.

Program note: Good panel of journalists this week that was underutilized in only discussing presidential politics or Hillary Clinton, which is also presidential politics.