On her MSNBC show on Thursday, host Andrea Mitchell kept pushing the blatant falsehood that the open letter by Senate Republicans to Iran regarding nuclear negotiations was an "unprecedented" move: "Let's talk about this letter now, because this is unprecedented."
Mitchell touted the Secretary of State making a show out of lecturing the GOP during a Senate hearing on Wednesday: "John Kerry's outrage was really genuine, this was not a political moment. He went before the committee where he had served for twenty-eight years and said, 'I – when I sat on the other side of the table, I had never done anything like this.'"
In reality, Kerry traveled to Nicaragua in 1985 to meet with Sandinista president Daniel Ortega, in violation of the Reagan administration's policy of supporting the opposition, the Contras.
Mitchell's guest, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd, launched into a rant about how politically damaging the letter was for Republicans:
...you almost wonder, did they not realize what they were signing on to? Did they not realize sort of how big of a deal this was going to be or how much it was going to be promoted? It is – look, let's just look at the political mistake of the letter. You're now these forty-seven Republicans, so now you own diplomacy failure, you get to own a piece of that. That's now on you....forget the actual policy and the historical precedent and all of this other stuff, just on a political front it was stupid.
Moments later, Todd proclaimed: "...we are sending a message to the world that he gets undermined immediately at home and the President's word can't be taken....this is why this was such a dangerous precedent set."
Todd actually did acknowledge past precedent set by Democrats, like Kerry, defying the foreign policy of Republican presidents. Amazingly, however, he dismissed such comparisons as irrelevant: "I know that there's this push on the right, 'Well, Nancy Pelosi went to Syria and Ted Kennedy was doing quiet talks' – this, A, is on a scale we've never seen before. And B, when did...I live in a world where two wrongs make a right? If that was wrong then, this is wrong now."
But it's okay to live in a world where every Democrat denouncing the Republican letter is a hypocrite?
Mitchell chimed in by citing the Ayatollah of Iran as a GOP critic: "And you saw that the Supreme Leader has responded in a letter of his own, talking about how this shows the dysfunction of American politics." Todd replied: "Which is playing into his hands in the negotiations, you've weakened the hand of the negotiators."
Todd wrapped up the discussion by blasting "simple-minded" conservatives:
...another thing that is too simple – simplistic that people have done too much. There are six nations that are negotiating with the Iranians here....this simple-minded way of framing this, that some want to frame on the right, that the President is the one unilaterally negotiating with Iranians is hogwash....to sort of throw it in as if this is just some typical red versus blue stuff is just – it's sad to watch it, to sort of watch the dysfunction.
Demonstrating how in-line she and Todd were with Democratic talking points, later on the program Mitchell teed up Virginia Senator Tim Kaine to bash his Republican colleagues:
MITCHELL: As we've been reporting, the Iranian Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei commented on the letter sent by forty-seven Republican senators. He issued his own letter, calling the correspondence, quote, "a collapse of political ethics." This is only weeks before the deadline to reach a nuclear deal. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine is on the Foreign Relations Committee and joins me now. Senator, tell me about your reaction to this letter and how unprecedented it is.
KAINE: Well, Andrea, it's completely unprecedented that you would have members of this body trying to tank a diplomatic negotiation that's in its final phases. And so when I heard about it I was kind of in disbelief, and then saw the letter and I was stunned. The good news is it has been so roundly condemned by reasonable people on all sides of the political spectrum that I think the lasting impact of it is not going to be that significant.
On Tuesday, fellow MSNBC host Thomas Roberts similarly promoted the liberal myth that Republicans had done something unprecedented.
Here is a transcript of Mitchell's March 12 exchange with Todd:
12:23 PM ET
(...)
MITCHELL: Let's talk about this letter now, because this is unprecedented. And John Kerry's outrage was really genuine, this was not a political moment.
TODD: No.
MITCHELL: He went before the committee where he had served for twenty-eight years and said, "I – when I sat on the other side of the table, I had never done anything like this." You got this letter signed by forty-seven Republicans and John McCain now acknowledging, "Well, whoops, it may have been a mistake."
CHUCK TODD: I think you're seeing a whole bunch of – not really – you almost wonder, did they not realize what they were signing on to? Did they not realize sort of how big of a deal this was going to be or how much it was going to be promoted? It is – look, let's just look at the political mistake of the letter. You're now these forty-seven Republicans, so now you own diplomacy failure, you get to own a piece of that. That's now on you. If you wanted to make a bipartisan case against the deal, well you've partisanized the issue and you've scared Democrats away from wanting to get involved.
MITCHELL: Because there were plenty of Democrats who were eager to sign on against a nuclear deal.
TODD: There are so many – forget – you can – forget the actual policy and the historical precedent and all of this other stuff, just on a political front it was stupid.
MITCHELL: And Hillary Clinton, as part of her opening comments at that news conference I was at, at the U.N., mentioned the Iran negotiations and the letter and now tweeted out about the letter as well, her tweet that, "GOP letter to Iranian clerics undermines American leadership. No one considering running for commander-in-chief should be signing on." She tweeted that yesterday. There was a return tweet by – or another tweet by Bobby Jindal, a possible candidate, reacting to Hillary, "@HillaryClinton no one who allows Iran to become a nuclear power should consider running." Of course the stated position of the negotiations is that the President will not let Iran become a nuclear power.
TODD: Look, do unto others as you want done unto you if you're President of the United States. The fact of the matter is – and I believe someone laid this out this morning, I believe it was – I read it in Foreign Policy, which is you start undermining – if the President of the United States who is tasked with conducting America's foreign policy and negotiating these deals, if we are sending a message to the world that he gets undermined immediately at home and the President's word can't be taken and this is the way we're going to conduct our business around the world, we're not going to get anything done. And this is a – this is why this was such a dangerous precedent set.
I know that there's this push on the right, "Well, Nancy Pelosi went to Syria and Ted Kennedy was doing quiet talks" – this, A, is on a scale we've never seen before. And B, when did-
MITCHELL: And it's the Ayatollah.
TODD: When did I live in a world where two wrongs make a right? If that was wrong then, this is wrong now.
MITCHELL: And you saw that the Supreme Leader has responded in a letter of his own, talking about how this shows the dysfunction of American politics.
TODD: Which is playing into his hands in the negotiations, you've weakened the hand of the negotiators. Which by the way, and here's another thing that is too simple – simplistic that people have done too much. There are six nations that are negotiating with the Iranians here. It is a P Five Plus One, there's five other nations. The idea – this simple-minded way of framing this, that some want to frame on the right, that the President is the one unilaterally negotiating with Iranians is hogwash, you have the Chinese are there, the Russians are there, the Germans are there, the French are there, the British are there, collectively.
MITCHELL: In fact the French are trying to slow it down.
TODD: There are a lot of different ways this is going. The U.S. is in – you know, this is very precarious, so to sort of throw it in as if this is just some typical red versus blue stuff is just – it's sad to watch it, to sort of watch the dysfunction. There used to be a foreign policy bipartisan club and it's, it's dwindling.
(...)
