Cheney: Congress must not interfere with the president's Iran policy.
In less than a week, congressional Republicans have taken two unprecedented steps to undermine the foreign policy of a sitting American president. Last Tuesday, they offered Capitol Hill as a global stage to a foreign leaderPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israelto sabotage the U.S.-led nuclear talks with Iran. And this weekend, 47 GOP senators sent a letter to the leadership in Tehran warning the Islamic Republic that Congressor the next presidentcould blow up any nuclear deal at any time.
But one Republican leaderDick Cheneyfuriously condemned congressional interference with the president's policy toward Iran. Condemned it, that is, provided the president was Ronald Reagan and the issue wasn't limiting Iran's arsenal, but enhancing it.
That's right. In the wake of the arms-for-hostages scandal that engulfed President Reagan in 1986, the minority Republican response to the congressional Iran-Contra investigation declared that Congress, not the White House, had done something wrong. Joined then by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch (who also signed this week's letter) among other GOP leaders, Cheney didn't just denounce the majority's findings as "clearly cast in such a partisan tone," but insisted President Reagan had the constitutional authority to ignore the congressional ban on aid to the Nicaraguan Contras:
"Judgments about the Iran-Contra Affair ultimately must rest upon one's views about the proper roles of Congress and the President in foreign policy. ... [T]hroughout the Nation's history, Congress has accepted substantial exercises of Presidential power -- in the conduct of diplomacy, the use of force and covert action -- which had no basis in statute and only a general basis in the Constitution itself. ... [M]uch of what President Reagan did in his actions toward Nicaragua and Iran were constitutionally protected exercises of inherent Presidential powers. ... [T]he power of the purse ... is not and was never intended to be a license for Congress to usurp Presidential powers and functions."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/09/1369673/-Cheney-Congress-must-not-interfere-with-the-President-s-Iran-policy?detail=email#
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)situation. Oh well I guess I saved medical bills since I didn't have too fall out of my chair.
elleng
(131,106 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)For 6 years they have been reflexively and rabidly anti-Obama. No matter the issue, if he is for it they are against it.
Liked the misleading title. I thought at first that Cheney might have defended Obama in this case.
Romeo.lima333
(1,127 posts)and thought that hell had frozen over
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Here in Chicago we do not need air conditioning.