GOP Senators Iran Letter: A Form of Government Shutdown?

Here's what a great country does: Let a first-time senator craft a treasonous
letter to a foreign country during critical negotiations. Then have the vast
majority of GOP senators -- and 2016 GOP contenders -- sign on.

(Updated below!)

The uproar over Tom Cotton's nefarious letter has boiled over into a kind of government shutdown. Foreign countries wonder who's in charge of the chicken coop. Boneheads from Arkansas, majority leaders from Kentucky, or the president of the U.S., AKA Leader of the Free World?

Note in the growing number of comments in the above linked WaPo article that 99% are disgusted by the Senate majority's action. And this in a major newspaper whose comment flow usually runs tea-partyish. Sheesh.

It's tantamount to a government shutdown and just as embarrassing for the party that allowed it. What are they thinking if not just one more attempt to prevent Barack Obama from being effective, effective on behalf of the American people?

Horrifying, yet in a startling development, it appears the GOP tactic is backfiring in an unexpected way. And, adding fuel to the growing fire, it turns out that an elite cadre of GOP/pro-Israeli donors are anti-Iran-deal allies. Eeeck.

More reaction here, here, here, and here. Excerpt from McClatchy:

But Congress has perhaps never so openly disrespected the president on a foreign stage as now. Or intervened more actively to disrupt an international negotiation.
Like the Federalists of 1814, today’s Republican leaders are wading into deep, swift waters.

Whatever happened to the Federalist Party? When Madison’s negotiators forged a peace treaty with Britain, and General Andrew Jackson defeated British troops in the epic Battle of New Orleans a week later, delegates to the Hartford Convention looked like fools and traitors.

The nation’s first political party died swiftly. Reviled by the patriotic electorate, the Federalists never again won the Oval Office. The United States had a one-party system for the next two decades, until the Whig Party arose in 1833.

Modern Republicans have a much longer history than the Federalists. Cotton’s party is made of a sterner fabric than the party of Washington.

But the junior senator from Arkansas ought to beware. The American people have never cottoned to treason — or the implication of it.

Yikes.

The Ayatollah Khamenei waves to his many fans in the GOP caucus.

Update. National funny bone Charles P. Pierce of Esquire unloads on Tom Cotton here, here, and here. Let the healing begin!