Obama Hoist On His Own Canard

Obama continues to regard Republicans — and increasingly, the Congress as a whole — as a more ominous threat to all he holds dear (mainly his “legacy”) than the mullahs in Iran. Indeed, his fury at them is so unbounded that if it did not display his characteristic double standard it would have no standards at all.

Consider the following almost comical contradiction, as reported by Karen DeYoung in the Washington Post. First, his criticism of John McCain and the Republicans that stops just short (doesn’t it?) of accusing them of treason:

Obama was particularly critical of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who, he said, accused Secretary of State John F. Kerry of being “less trustworthy than the supreme leader” of Iran in explaining the specifics of the framework agreement completed early this month between Tehran, the United States and other world powers.

“That’s an indication of the degree to which partisanship has crossed all boundaries,” Obama said. “That’s not how we’re supposed to run foreign policy. When you start getting to the point that the U.S. government and our secretary of state are somehow spinning . . . that’s a problem. It needs to stop,” he said.

But now look at how the president is able to dismiss the Ayotollah’s “Death to America, Kill all the Jews” extremism:

“What’s always been clear,” Obama said, “is that Iran has its own politics around this issue . . . their own hard-liners . . . their own counterveiling impulses, just as we have in our country.”

“It’s not surprising to me that the supreme leader or a whole bunch of other people are going to try to characterize the deal in a way that protects their political position….

Obama thus believes that it is beyond the pale for a Senator to assert that our Secretary of State’s description of the “framework” is less accurate than the Supreme Leader’s but perfectly fine for him to equate Congressional Republicans with Iran’s “hardliners.”

This contradiction is so blatant and self-serving that it hardly even qualifies as spin.

Finally, it would be nice if some intrepid reporter would ask the president to share with us the criteria he uses to determine which mullahs are “hardliners” and which are not and to point to a few who are not so we could judge for ourselves.

 

Say What?