Since When is Congress Not Part of the U.S. Goverment?

Joe Klein:

It is hard to imagine what uber-patriotic Republicans would be doing if Democrats were intervening on behalf of a foreign country against the United States government. But here we have the Republicans, newly tumescent with their House majority, attempting to interpose themselves on the side of Israel against the President.

This echoes criticism of Eric Cantor’s discussions with Binyamin Netanyahu. It seems that for some, the U.S. government = the executive branch–but only when there is a Democratic president, in which case, as Klein explicitly states, it is unpatriotic and unAmerican to oppose the executive branch’s foreign policy. On the other hand, allowing the executive unilateral authority on issues of foreign policy is fascistic and despotic when Republicans are in power.

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that Republicans are equally hypocritical on such issues, demanding deference to the executive when the GOP controls the presidency, and claiming such deference is against the American constitutional scheme (which it is) when there is a Democratic president. But that doesn’t make venomous attacks on critics of Obama’s Israel policies any more palatable.

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