Suppose I told you that the first paragraph of Mike DeBonis’s article in the Washington Post said “If Hill Republicans thought Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Tuesday address would build broad support for having Congress review any nuclear deal with Iran, they thought wrong.” What would it communicate to you?
To me, it clearly communicates that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech was a bust; that it failed to rally support for congressional review of any deal.
Which is a bit surprising, since Mr. Netanyahu was treated like a world-class rock star when he walked into the room, was given thunderous applause and standing ovations throughout his speech, and was swarmed by congresspeople wanting to shake his hand on the way out.
So what went so wrong with Netanyahu’s speech that all this was negated?
Well, here is the key part of the article explaining it:
On Tuesday evening, Menendez, ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee and a fierce critic of the Iranian regime, went to the Senate floor to withdraw his support for the bill, suggesting that McConnell’s move (to bring the bill to the floor next week) represented an effort to influence or derail the negotiations now underway rather than a bona fide desire to review whatever deal is reached.
“I can’t imagine why the majority leader would seek to short circuit the process unless the goals are political rather than substantive, and I regret to say these actions make clear an intention that isn’t substantive, that is political,” Menendez said. “The majority leader is single-handedly undermining our bipartisan efforts.”
Kaine, meanwhile, issued a statement calling the move to send the bill to the floor “contrary to the important interests at stake.”
“Premature action also disrespects the ongoing work to build a broad coalition of colleagues in support of this bill,” Kaine said. “Congress should weigh in on any Iranian nuclear deal that impacts the statutory sanctions we’ve enacted. But we need to demonstrate that our review will be thoughtful and deliberate rather than rushed and partisan.”
Wait a minute.
That doesn’t say a word about either senator withdrawing support of the bill itself. The one and only thing it says is that Senator Menendez and Senator Kaine, both of whom avidly support the bill, feel Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing it through too quickly, and want a longer period of time for deliberations.
In other words, they do not in any way oppose the bill, they oppose Senator McConnell fast-tracking it.
Which means that the headline completely misrepresents reality.
But, not at all surprisingly, hard left sites like democraticunderground.com and politicususa.com, among many others, are gleefully picking up on that headline and pretending, as whomever wrote the headline was (it isn’t always the article writer), that something happened which did not.
Congratulations to you, whomever you are. I have no doubt you’ve fooled a lot of readers too.
And congratulations to the Washington Post editors who let it to as written. Nice to see you’re holding to your neutrality…..
