Cheney: Congress must not interfere with the president's Iran policy.

[elleng]

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 leader—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel—to 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 Congress—or the next president—could blow up any nuclear deal at any time.

But one Republican leader—Dick Cheney—furiously 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]

1. Damn I thought it was about current

situation. Oh well I guess I saved medical bills since I didn't have too fall out of my chair.

[elleng]

3. Me too!!!

[guillaumeb]

2. does anyone expect consistency from the GOP?

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]

4. im sitting in this i.t. room freezing ,at first i thought it was the a.c. then i read the headline

and thought that hell had frozen over

[guillaumeb]

5. nice!

Here in Chicago we do not need air conditioning.