On Monday, 47 Republican senators led by Tom Cotton, R-Ark., released an \u201copen letter\u201d to Iran\u2019s leaders noting that any deal the regime signs with President Obama without the approval of Congress could be revoked by a future president or changed by Congress. The White House went into a tizzy trying to portray the move as somehow \u201cunprecedented\u201d \u2014 a view that has found a friendly audience with the media.<\/p>\n
Vice President Joe Biden claimed the letter \u201cignores two centuries of precedent and threatens to undermine the ability of any future American president, whether democrat or republican, to negotiate with other nations on behalf of the United States.\u201d The New York Daily News featured an editorial blasting the letter on its front page, with photos of the senators and the bold-faced headline \u201cTRAITORS.\u201d A more muted NBC roundup called the move \u201cextraordinary \u2014 if not unprecedented.\u201d In reality, whatever one\u2019s view of the letter, to call it \u201cunprecedented\u201d is to ignore history. The reality is that on many occasions, Democrats have reached out to foreign leaders to undermine the foreign policy of a sitting Republican president.<\/p>\n
Here are just five examples.<\/p>\n
1. That time \u201cliberal lion\u201d Ted Kennedy proposed a secret alliance with the Soviet Union to defeat President Ronald Reagan
\nA 1983 KGB memo uncovered after the fall of the Soviet Union described a meeting between former KGB officials and former Democratic Sen. John Tunney (Sen. Kennedy\u2019s confidant) in Moscow. Tunney asked the KGB to convey a message to Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leader, proposing a campaign in which Kennedy would visit Moscow to offer talking points to Andropov and Soviet officials on how to attack Reagan\u2019s policies to U.S. audiences. According to the memo, Kennedy, through the intermediary, offered to help facilitate a media tour in a proposed visit by Andropov to the U.S. Kennedy\u2019s hope, as conveyed by the letter, was to hurt Reagan politically on foreign policy at a time when the economic recovery was working in his favor.<\/p>\n
2. \u201cDear Comandante\u201d
\nIn 1984, 10 Democratic lawmakers \u2014 including the then majority leader and House Intelligence Committee chairman \u2013 sent a letter to Nicaraguan Communist leader Daniel Ortega known as the \u201cDear Comandante\u201d letter. In it, the lawmakers criticized Reagan\u2019s policy toward Nicaragua and whitewashed the record of violence by the Sandinista communists.<\/p>\n
3. Pelosi visited Syrian ruler Bashar Assad
\nIn 2007, newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. As the Associated Press reported at the time, \u201cThe meeting was an attempt to push the Bush administration to open a direct dialogue with Syria, a step that the White House has rejected.\u201d<\/p>\n