My timeline was filled this evening by barely literate screechers who read one line about the Logan Act somewhere on Kos or wherever and can't stop repeating that it was somehow violated. No, it wasn't, just as it wasn't when Pelosi met with Bashar Al-Assad under Bush—yes, the Logan Act doesn't bar lawmakers from meeting with or speaking to foreign leaders. While Pelosi's action angered the Bush administration it's incomparable to what the Senate 47 did, which was to simply send a letter to Iranian leaders reminding them that any deal set upon between them and the President must meet majority approval in the Senate. Stating the way the process works in our Constitutional Republic is neither treasonous nor a violation of the Logan Act. If we're going to discuss who is undermining whom, I would think publicly stating that you think the deal is going to fail anyway rather than reminding about ratification qualifies as actual undermining.
If you want an example where a member of the legislative branch acted to undermine the President, here is an epic one, from that “lion” of the senate:
“The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov.”
Kennedy’s message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.
The reason that these 47 senators even sent this letter in the first place is because of this:
The question isn't why 47 senators are worried about a horrible deal with a country that calls us “The Great Satan” and blows up mock US warships; the question is why Obama is so confident that such a deal with such a country would work. Remedial arguments on the Logan Act and attacking senators like Bronze Star-awarded veteran Tom Cotton as “traitors” are lame deflections.
