"Disqualified"

After taking a week to digest its implications, influential blogger Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has a must read essay today on why Sen. Schumer's plan to vote against the Iran nuclear deal disqualifies him from being the next leader of the Democrats in the Senate.  Please read his arguments, which lead to this conclusion:

So why did Schumer oppose the deal? I think he moves in circles, personal and financial, where this deal is simply anathema and he doesn’t feel he can or wants to buck that opinion. He may also believe he can have his cake and eat it too - vote against, satisfy, and stay good with key supporters and not block its adoption. This is actually what I see as the most likely answer. He may also feel uncomfortable enough on this hot seat that he simply won’t look at the logic of the situation.

I can't know and frankly I don’t care. The bright line is that he’s smart enough to know better.

I’ve heard some say that this creates tension for him “on the left” in his quest to become Minority or Majority Leader. This is silly pundit talk. This isn’t the public option. This isn’t something supported by the foreign policy “left”. It’s very basic and mainstream and necessary. The fact that the neoconservatives who gamed the country into the Iraq disaster favor it does not change that.

Democratic senators who don’t reconsider support for Schumer as the leader of their caucus are making a big, big mistake. He should be ruled out of consideration for the job.  (our emphasis)

As Marshall demonstrates, surely Schumer is intelligent enough to know that the arguments he used to advance his position are dishonest and destructive.  That's what makes putting him into any future leadership role in the Senate so toxic.  Far from taking a principled position of conscience, Schumer has succumbed to the most banal impulses at a most critical moment in the history of our nation and of the nations in the Middle East.  This too- clever- by- half pol is hoping things will blow over (as opposed to blow up?) by the time Democrats vote for their next Senate leader.  There will be many of us trying to make sure that doesn't happen.

Marshall links to an op/ ed today by Fareed Zakaria, who takes Schumer's "reasoning" and demolishes it point by point, much as Jeffrey Lewis did earlier in Foreign Policy. Both are well worth reading to get a sense of how Schumer, a man who clearly knows better, has stood logic on its head for his own selfish reasons.