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At Jay’s prompting, Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) does a tour d’horizon: Iran, Iraq, Syria, 
Russia . . . Everywhere, there is danger. Everywhere, the United States has choices to make. The senator also talks about the Bergdahl swap: President Obama’s trade of five Taliban leaders for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, now charged with desertion.
Then there is the question of our defenses: Are they dangerously low, as many claim, or are they adequate to our needs? How about Edward Snowden, Russia’s American guest? Yesterday, some admirers put up a bust of him in a New York park.
Cotton also discusses the Obama presidency, the state of the GOP, and, at the end, a little basketball (for he was a hoopster, “a high-school hero and college zero,” he says). In his range, curiosity, and energy, Senator Tom Cotton is something rare on today’s scene.
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Thank you for this interview Mr. Nordlinger.
Can’t wait to get started. I’ll listen on my commute home today!
Tom Cotton – the Dixie Chick of the US Senate.
Tell that young man to read up on the Sole Organ Doctrine, and make sure he doesn’t violate it again.
That’s an embarrassing thing to say. You manage to combine a lack of any credentials better than the Senator’s with a lack of any authority & a lack of any ability to persuade him where you cannot compel. Not bad for such a brief remark–such a vast emptiness…
The Senate Committee report on the sole organ doctrine. There’s an authority. Cotton made America less safe when he sent that letter; a conclusion supported by that report. He should be preparing his defense of Logan Act charges, not giving interviews.
Wow, you talk like a man yearning to unburden himself of evidence: Please let us all know in what way America has been made less safe. I see a Pulitzer in your future.
As for the rest, & pending award of the much-coveted prize, I think you mean to say, someone ought to bring charges against him. Of course, that’s not a should–I’m not quibbling over semantics here, this is politics. It’s one thing to fantasize, another to talk politics. This would be bad politics–no one should do it, therefore. Or maybe I’m wrong–politics is also full of debatable things. Do you know anyone who has brought charges or said he will?
Further, is your sense of the matter that the Logan Act would stand up in court today? Or do you think that it oughtta, although it’s never gonna happen!
As an aside, would you drag into court Rep. Pelosi for the Assad visit, as well as every other elected politician?
That part where you mused that you might be wrong? You are. Go read the Senate committee report and the case law. Logan Acr won’t hold up to most fact patterns. This one will. The Senate report makes clear rhe act of putting a Senator in a foreign negotiation makes the country less safe. It doesn’t examine the purpose or intent of the Senator. Just violating the sole organ doctrine makes us less safe. I don’t like Obama as much as the next guy, but my Patriotism runs deep enough not to ignore time honored doctrine and law to make the point.
He’s a Dixie Chick. He did worse than she did.
I applaud your patriotism. I share your opinion about your current president. I cannot be bothered to read case law. I think you should consider writing a post on this subject–you seem remarkably confident & remarkably terse. This is a winning combination on Ricochet, I’d say.
You’ve got a lot of things to prove, aside from the legal accusation, like this, that writing the open letter accomplishes this ‘putting [one] in foreign negotiations’.
Also, as a practical matter, do you think any politician or anyone else will act on your opinion or a similar one?
As well, do not your want to say, 47 Senators now belong in jail? Not just one… Well, maybe they should all be in jail, but I mean, in this particular case…
That was a great interview. As a native Arkansan, I’m rather proud of Mr. Cotton. He’s a great asset to the senate and a rising star in the party. God speed to him, I say.