PostScript: Milbank and the anti-Obama reflex

Hassan Rouhani, Iran's president, delivers a keynote ahead of the ECO council of ministers in Tehran, Iran on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2013. Even before Iran's envoys could pack their bags in Geneva after wrapping up a first-step nuclear deal with world powers, President Rouhani was opening a potentially tougher diplomatic front: Selling the give-and-take to his country's powerful interests led by the Revolutionary Guard. Whether Iran’s hard-liners will aid or obstruct expanded UN inspections and other points of the accord stands as the biggest wild card on whether it can hit it marks and test Iran's claims that it does not seek nuclear weapons. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, speaking in Tehran today. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press)

What a lovely day to be discussing a new nuclear/sanctions agreement with Iran! Even more so when one has a lead-coated PostScript Bunker from which to observe the discussion, and when that bunker is not located in Iran.

But Dana Milbank, who had no such bunker, was out to observe the immediate public reaction of congressional/former White House Republicans to said deal, which, Milbank tells us, consisted of the arguments: 1) Anagrams and 2) Hitler.

As in, there were diplomatic promises extracted from Hitler, who nevertheless broke his promises and continued to be Hitler.

Nobody from the White House has been able to refute these charges. Still, Milbank thinks that it might be more useful to wait and hear what a thing is before you decide if it’s Hitler.

Not so, says hunter340. There’s no need to wait and see what the plan is, because Democrats tried something similar once before:

Remember when Democrats made a deal with North Korea to stop their nuclear weapons program? How did that work out for us and the world? From the Los Angeles Times:

October 19, 1994 – WASHINGTON — President Clinton on Tuesday approved a deal reached by U.S. negotiators in Geneva to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, saying the agreement “will make the United States, the Korean peninsula and the world safer.” Clearly delighted by what he considers a victory for his foreign policy, the President appeared before television cameras to hail the agreement as “the first step on the road to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.”

This agreement makes a nuclear Iran more, not less, likely.

bolomd says, too, that since there are valid reasons to oppose the deal (as there are valid reasons to oppose any deal), we should take opposers seriously. Even if they wait eight minutes and then tweet about how the letters of Obama’s name are also in the word “abandonment” rather than expressing their valid reasons:

Nobody can see into their heart of hearts. Maybe they are only taking this position to thwart Obama. But that doesn’t invalidate the position itself. Many people sincerely believe this deal to be mistake.

zeke27, though, says it ought to be up to the people who oppose the plan to come up with a real argument:

It’s ok to be skeptical, and it’s ok to question the details, but the Republicans should at least wait until the president speaks before they criticize what he says. Mr. Milbank is right, it kind of blows their cover. They have no disagreement on the merits because they don’t understand them. They just wanna say no.

But PostScript sees nothing here that invalidates the Hitler argument. Seriously, people. Hitler! If that doesn’t convince you you want a bunker, PostScript doesn’t know what will.


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