A REPUBLICAN WE CAN COTTON TO

Dr. George Logan of Germantown, Pa. took it upon himself to negotiate an end to our undeclared war with France, which peeved President John Adams.

So in January, 1799, Congress passed the Logan Act, which forbids a citizen, "without the authority of the United States," to "engage in correspondence or intercourse" with a foreign government "in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States."

There was one indictment under the Logan Act – in 1803 — but no prosecutions.

Unhinged Democrats resurrected the Logan Act from the musty pages of history after Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR, wrote an "open" letter to the mullahs in Tehran (full text in the link) to remind them that if the Senate doesn’t ratify it, any deal they make with President Obama will end when his term does.

 "That’s sedition!" howled MSNBC talk show host Chris Matthews. Sen. Cotton and the 46 GOP senators who cosigned it should be prosecuted for violating the Logan Act, leftists demanded in an online petition.

 "Anyone seeking evidence that our schools no longer effectively teach the Constitution need look no further than the hair on fire response" to the Cotton letter, said Tampa Tribune columnist Tom Jackson.

The Logan Act doesn’t apply to Members of Congress, the State Department said in 1975. For which Democrats – who often have colluded with anti-American dictators to frustrate the foreign policy of a Republican president – should be thankful.  A half-dozen examples:

*State issued its opinion after two Democrat senators visited Fidel Castro in Cuba.

*Sen. Ted Kennedy sent an emissary to Moscow in 1983 to tell Soviet leaders he’d work with them to defeat President Reagan’s foreign policy.

*Sens. John Kerry, D-MA, and Tom Harkin, D-IA, flew to Nicaragua in 1985 to negotiate with the Sandinista regime. Democrats oppose President Reagan’s efforts to oust it, House Majority Leader Jim Wright, D-TX, informed dictator Daniel Ortega in a letter the year before.

*On the eve of the Iraq war, three House Democrats flew to Baghdad to schmooze with Saddam Hussein.

*House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flew to Damascus in 2007 to meet with Syrian dictator Bashir Assad.

*The backchannel messages Sen. Barack Obama sent to the mullahs in 2008 to assure them they’d get a better deal from him undermined President Bush’s negotiations with Iran.

The Cotton letter "is a simple, beautifully written exposition about the American Constitution and its effects," said the blogger Bookworm. "In addition, it’s a wonderful honey pot for calling stupid Progressives out of their dark caves and exposing their ignorance to bright sunlight."

Sen. Cotton wrote it to shine a light on President Obama’s willingness to permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, which at least 77 percent of Americans oppose, according to a Gallup poll in February.

Mission accomplished – in large part because of the hysterical, hypocritical overreaction from Democrats.

Democrats hoped no one would notice they intended to allow Iran to build nukes. But after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress and Sen. Cotton’s letter, "they were left scurrying about like roaches with the light turned on," said columnist Erick Erickson.

The Cotton letter "smoked out" the president’s plans to bypass Congress, said David Gerstman of Legal Insurrection.

Administration officials were still trying to vilify Sen. Cotton on the talk shows last Sunday – a tacit acknowledgement he hasn’t been defeated, said William Bigelow of Breitbart News.

Despite intense lobbying by the administration, not a single Democrat in the Senate has backed away from supporting a new Iran sanctions bill.

And thanks chiefly to rhetorical overkill, a new Republican star is born.

Overnight, Tom Cotton has become the GOP’s leading spokesman on national security policy, said campaign analyst Stu Rothenberg. His maiden speech in the Senate Monday excoriating Mr. Obama’s foreign policy got much more attention than it otherwise would have.

"Cotton is a hero. He’s got balls," said Dr. John at Flopping Aces. "I love this guy. I could see him as President one day."

So could others. A McClatchy News Service story was headlined:  "Fallout from the senators’ Iran letter: Tom Cotton for president?"

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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