Sen. Tom Cotton's Iran Mash Note Not Working Out That Well For Him Actually

Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas teabagger and the world's foremost expert on how to win friends and influence people, appeared on "Morning Joe" to explain why he isnota traitor for writing a letter to the leaders of Iran explaining that President Obama doesn't really have any authority, so ignore him.

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We remain unpersuaded.

The reason Cotton and 46 fellow Republicans are openly attempting to undermine the president's negotiations with Iran has nothing to do with trying to openly undermine the president. Oh no. They're just carrying out The Will o' The People:

I and 46 other senators are simply speaking for the American people. Your own network just released a poll that says 71 percent of Americans don’t think a deal that the president is negotiating will stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

Excellent point, Senator! Because the latest NBC/WSJ poll shows Americans are skeptical about the deal the Obama administration is trying to negotiate, the obvious conclusion is that they'd like Republican senators to intervene and "negotiate" directly with Iran, since President Obama is not man enough to bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran, like a real president would.

Not that Cotton actually wants to bomb Iran. Hahahahaha yes he does, but he claims he just thinks the threat of military action should be sufficient because nothing makes a country want to cooperate and sign a deal like the threat of getting bombed into the last century. It's worked so well with other "rogue" nations, Cotton says because he was playing hooky the year they taught recent history:

Israel struck Iraq’s nuclear program in 1981, and they didn’t reconstitute it. Israel struck Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007, and they haven’t yet reconstituted it. Rogue regimes have a way of getting the picture when there’s a credible threat of military force on the table that we will not allow the world’s worst regimes to get the world’s worst weapons. That’s why it’s important that we have the credible threat of force on the table that would only enhance the ability to get a better deal that leads to Iran disarming its nuclear weapons program.

Bombing other countries was super effective in persuading them to not even think about rebuilding their weapons programs, which is why we never had to invade Iraq to fight them over there so they would not 9/11 mushroom cloud us to death over here. It's also why we have not gone deaf from the constant drumbeat from conservatives to do some war to Syria, at least not since 2007.

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That Tom Cotton, he sure knows some stuff:

The point we’re making to Iran’s leaders, who, if you talk to many Iran experts, will say don’t understand our Constitution, is that if Congress does not approve a deal, Congress won’t accept a deal. Now or in the future.

So this is just about helping Iran become familiar with the U.S. Constitution? Couldn't Cotton just loan Iran his copy of the Cato Institute's pocket Constitution instead? Maybe highlight the sections where it says "Don't do deals with President Obama, he sucks." Oh but that wouldn't be any fun, would it? That wouldn't really drive the right message home. Which is what, again?

Iran’s leaders have to understand that while the president negotiates agreements under our Constitution, Congress approves agreement. And if Congress doesn’t approve agreement, then no future Congress, nor future president, is bound by that agreement.

Ah, yes. Technically, President Obama is doing exactly what the Constitution authorizes him to do, which is to negotiate an agreement with Iran, but Congress has already decided it doesn't like whatever agreement the president might negotiate if it doesn't include threatening to bomb Iran SO HARD. But instead of allowing the Obama administration to carry out its constitutional process of negotiations, the impatient Republican senators figure they'll just jump right to the point of telling Iran they will never let the president complete the negotiation process because they really hate that guy.

By the way, according to Cotton, it's not just him and his 46 new BFFs who feel this way.

"Many senators didn’t sign for various reasons," he said, "but many senators agree with my views even if they didn’t sign the letter." But he can't tell us which ones, because those are sensitive "private conversations." Unlike international negotiations over nuclear programs, obviously.

[ NBC/WSJ Poll ]