The right's reaction to the Iran deal is living up to our every expectation

They never disappoint. And in that, we can take some comfort.

A prevailing sentiment, if not provable proposition, held by the left is that the right is far too saturated in feral malice to ever permit an intelligent thought to escape. For instance President Obama can ask what, to any thinking person, is a mere rhetorical question — let's say, "Do you really think that this verifiable deal [with Iran], if fully implemented, backed by the world’s major powers, is a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?" — and the right's dark luminaries will take the bait every time. They just can't help themselves; any functioning, firing synapses are instantly throttled by a malicious compulsion to sound fashionably stupid.

To wit, this tweet by Hot Air's Ed Morrissey, "Stop all this negativity, my fellow conservatives, on this Iran deal. The Iranians didn't get the Sudetenland"; or this one by Laura Ingraham, "Triple Bogey: So Iran gets sanctions lifted, they keep plenty of centrifuges humming, AND they don't have to take John Kerry?!"; or, last and definitely least, Michelle Malkin's "Obama won't be around to clean up the mess. Well, actually, nobody will be around the clean up the mess" — because of a thermonuclear holocaust.

We're all quite amused, I'm sure, and of course it's comforting to learn — time and time again — that our stereotypical assumptions about the right are more than mere prejudice. Over there, the bloggers, broadcasters and bloviators really are just hateful numbnuts.

Alas, in their unanimous numbnuttery, they also set the overall tone for their party's leaders and presidential candidates, who wish to take no chances with the tinkled-on, malice-infused rank and file. When it comes to topics about which the bloviators and base have no clue whatsoever — centrifuges, fissile material, break-out times, that sort of thing — the candidates take the lead of the clueless.

And why not? Jeb Bush, who said yesterday that he "cannot stand behind such a flawed agreement," has no more idea what in God's name fissile material is, I'd wager, than does Michelle Malkin. He does know that c-e-n-t-r-i-f-u-g-e-s is an anagram of "politics," thus he firmly stands not behind an agreement he probably understands nothing about. But even if Jeb harbored the nuclear expertise of Ernest Moniz and privately greeted this deal with the enthusiasm of Mohammad Zarif, he'd still go with the politics of public numbnuttery. For the tone was set long ago. 

Or, there's Scott Walker, whose depths of ignorance and eagerness to pander are so profound, they are virtually unplumbable. Asked this week if as president he would destroy Obama's Iranian agreement "even if our trading partners" and closest allies "did not want to reimpose the sanctions," the vacant governor said: "Absolutely…. I will pull back on that on January 20, 2017, because the last thing … we need is a nuclear-armed Iran."

As noted, that's just unplumbable. There's no way to analyze in any worthwhile way such deep disingenuity or, worse, such breathtaking stupidity. Yet it's fortunate for Gov. Walker that those are the very qualities most admired by the right's bloggers, broadcasters, bloviators and base. What a bunch.

 

Comments

[Turgidson]

At some point this has to end, right? The ability of an entire political party and the ideological energy that supports it to insist, over and over again, on almost every issue of any importance, that up-is-down, black-is-white? And to be electorally rewarded for it - at least during low turnout elections? This can't go on endlessly, can it? At some point, a critical mass of voters will have to rub their eyes and say "wait a minute, those guys are totally full of shit!!"

Right? Some day? Before they get the nuke codes and accidentally (or not) bring about that apocalypse the religious right wackos are so interested in?

We have almost everyone from the GOP and Bibi out there saying things that are just...nonsense! Pure fucking nonsense! An agreement that dismantles 70% of Iran's nuclear infrastructure and takes away all of their more advanced centrifuges is being panned as effectively handing them a nuclear bomb on a platter. How can they say shit like this without immediately being ridiculed and told to either stop lying or shut the fuck up?

I just can't deal with the unchecked, irresponsible mendacity anymore. It's just too infuriating and depressing.

[MaryAnn Betts]

I listened to David Brooks on NPR today and it became clearer to me why he, Netanyahu, and congressional Repulicans are against the deal. He rejected the president's formulation of the argument. They don't admit to the right of Iran to exist. They want regime change. Netanyahu does say so but then he throws in bogus arguments on the nuclear question that side tracks people off their real argument. David brooks said clearly that they don't want anything that strengthens Iran economically that thereby allows them more influence in the region including for terrorist groups in opposition Israel.

This leads me to believe they are not as afraid of a nuclear Iran as they say; it is really just part of their evidence that the existence of Iran can't be tolerated.

I think they underestimate the danger of a failed state in Iran. And, they persist in not accepting that though the U.S. military might can destroy anyone, that does't mean we can build the replacement.

I wish I new how to win this argument with enough of Congress to guarantee that they can't override the President 's veto. As you noted they have a lot of followers terrified that the agreement would lead to a nuclear Iran that would threaten us.