The President will depart DC this week for Martha’s Vineyard, where he will enjoy a fortnight of frolic among the bourgeoisie, playing rounds of golf and eating all sorts of over-priced seafood, possibly while dressed like someone’s mother in a 1985 commercial for paper towels.
Meanwhile, he’s supposed to be convincing members of Congress that the deal he and John Kerry negotiated with Iran, which will lift sanctions in return for basically nothing but Iranian assurances that they will not turn western Europe into a sea of green glass in a nuclear disaster. Although he gave a short speech and Tweeted out a couple of lame reasons for supporting the deal (“its deal or war!” – never mind Iran is already basically at war with everyone, anyway), he’s leaving most of the convincing to his staff, who will call him to intervene with Democratic turncoats only if his influence is truly necessary.
Anticipating a month of heavy lobbying and television advertising by opponents, led by the pro-Israel group Aipac, the president and members of his team are leaning on Democrats to declare their backing for the agreement before they leave Washington to face their constituents.
Mr. Obama, who will decamp to Martha’s Vineyard this weekend for his own two-week vacation, will have limited personal contact with wavering lawmakers, but his team has been instructed to make the president and other senior administration officials available to any skeptic with an unanswered question or concern about the deal. “Anyone who wants a phone call will get one,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to outline internal strategy.
Officials said that Mr. Obama’s address on Wednesday would be followed by a series of news media interviews that would be shown next week. And the administration plans to dispatch cabinet members, including Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz, the nuclear physicist who helped negotiate the accord, to travel the country outlining its provisions. Mr. Moniz will appear on Friday at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, officials said.
Ernest Moniz will be far more convincing if he reverts to his previous role – as that guy in No Country for Old Men that kills people with an air compressor.
This seems like a big deal, for one of two reasons. One, it may be that the Democrats are already so far off the reservation on this that the President doesn’t think his influence will do any good, seeing as how they already know he’s behind the deal and that he’s looking for their support. Obama doesn’t need to reiterate that. It’s possible he doesn’t even care that high-level Democrats have defected from the deal; he knows that he’s got the upper hand on PR here with their supporters, and that’s all they need to know. He might be blessedly delusional, but he’s not going to let it ruin his vacation.
It’s also entirely possible that Obama has lost much of his cache with fellow Democrats who see him as a lame duck, and not necessary to winning their next election cycles. People like Chuck Schumer are safe, and their constituents are not supported of their Iran deal, so it doesn’t matter whether the President calls to convince him or not. He no longer matters to Congress, so Congress no longer matters to him.
Either way, he’ll be workin go on his handicap. That slot on the PGA Senior Tour isn’t going to earn itself.
