Last week I wrote an article, after listening to Bibi Jones, I mean Netanyahu, address the United States Congress, that I wasn’t convinced by his rhetoric. Netanyahu was trying to convince us all about how dangerous Iran supposedly is, in contrast to North Korea or Pakistan, for example, and how the very existence of Israel was at stake. What I did not know at that time is that Netanyahu had made almost the exact same warning, ironically, to another joint session of Congress back in 1996.

At that time he said, “If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, this could presage catastrophic consequences, not only for my country, and not only for the Middle East, but for all mankind. Four years before that Congressional speech, in 1992,  before he was Prime Minister, Netanyahu advised the Israeli Knesset that Iran was “three to five years” away from reaching nuclear weapons capability. And that was, let’s see, more than 22 years ago!

Having addressed another session of Congress last week, we now have the sad spectacle of 47 Republican Senators penning a letter to Iran advising that country that they won’t sign off on any deal. This letter was penned by freshman Senator Tom Cotton, naturally. As Joe Biden has pointed out, this move “ignores 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.”

Then yesterday John Thune, the Republican Senator from South Dakota, went on the PBS News Hour to defend the letter and assure us all that if the negotiations collapse, Iran will not go ahead and ramp up it’s nuclear program to completion (the very thing everyone claims that they don’t want). This, from the same crew who assured us that we would be greeted as “liberators” when we invaded Iraq and that Saddam Hussein was hiding a boatload of weapons of mass destruction.

My friends, this is what happens when Fox “News” is your most “trusted” source of information. And you would think the Congress wouldn’t be taken in by a smooth politician like Netanyahu. Haven’t these guys listened to political speeches before? Don’t these guys have a crack research staff like I do? (Mine is a staff of one.)