John Cornyn looks like a Senator from central casting. He also looks a bit like the late Texas Governor John Connally who shared a bad time and a bullet with Jack Kennedy in 1963. Of course, Connally was an intelligent man whereas John Cornyn is a malaka who I like to call Senator Cornhole. Btw, many on the Kennedy White House staff called LBJ, Rufus Cornpone, which was unfair. Cornhole is not unfair to Cornyn…
I’m surprised it took me so long to anoint Senator Cornhole as malaka of the week, he’s more than qualified. His imbecilic comments on the Tweeter Tube earned the Texan his, uh, spurs:
Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care
— JohnCornyn (@JohnCornyn)November 24, 2013
I somehow doubt that Senator Cornhole does his own tweeting. It’s probably some spotty young wingnut staffer who posts stupid shit on behalf of his master, but Cornyn is responsible. Make that irresponsible. If a Democratic Senator had said something like this during the Bush years, they would have been pilloried as unpatriotic but as we all know IOKIYAR.
It’s typical of most GOPers that they’re as ardently against waging peace as they are in favor of waging war. Unless you’re Bibi Netanyahu, a Saudi Prince, or a neo-con the deal cut by John Kerry and the other Western foreign ministers is a good first step to a peaceful conclusion of this controversy:
A few weeks ago, a “senior administration official” outlined the agreement that President Obama hoped to achieve in Geneva. Some reporters who heard the briefing (including me) thought that the terms were way too one-sided, that the Iranians would never accept them. Here’s the thing: The deal just signed by Iran and the P5+1 nations (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China plus Germany) is precisely the hoped-for deal laid out at that briefing.
It is an interim agreement, not a treaty (which means, among other things, that it doesn’t require Senate ratification). It is meant as a first step toward a comprehensive treaty to be negotiated in the next six months. More than that, it expires in six months. In other words, if Iran and the other powers can’t agree on a follow-on accord in six months, nobody is stuck with a deal that was never meant to be permanent. There is no opportunity for traps and trickery.
Negotiations kicked into high gear back in March, long before the so-called Obamacare trainwreck, which is, in reality, involves a web site that needs fixing. Senator Cornhole and other ACA foes are the ones who are obsessed with it., which led to Cornyn’s Wag the Dog tweet. This whole thing makes me long for the day when “politics ended at the water’s edge” on most important foreign policy issues. Nobody except for irredentist neo-cons and Israeli wingnuts wants war with Iran. This is a golden opportunity to bring Iran back into the community of nations and I’m glad the administration is going for it and ignoring malakas like John Cornyn.
The other thing that troubles me about Senator Cornhole’s malakatudinous outburst is where it took place: on the Tweeter Tube. I like Twitter, it’s fun and it’s a great place for snarky one-liners. But it’s not a good place for thoughtful policy discussion, especially by senior politicians who can actually influence matters. Think about it: some bozo on John Cornyn’s staff wrote a tweet that made his boss look like the Emperor of the Moronosphere and, in turn, made him the malaka of the week.