Let me say at the outset I don't agree with Obama's policy of utilizing drones to kill terrorists that also occasionally murder honest civilians. Nor do I cotton to his administration's policy of prosecuting whistle-blowers, among other things. Disagreeing with the president on some policy issues is one thing but the number and manner of slights he's been subjected to by Republicans is unprecedented.

Virtually from the day he assumed office, members of the GOP have made it clear they do not like, trust or respect this president. Shortly after winning the White House, Obama announced he wanted to deliver a televised message to students beginning a new school year. It wasn't anything unusual. President George H. W. Bush did the same thing during his tenure. But the reaction from various figures in the GOP verged on hysteria.

"I don't know what he's going to say," commented one GOP-elected official, as if Obama might be plotting to urge American school children to rise up in armed rebellion. His address was to be piped into schools throughout the country. Some Republicans and parents vowed to keep their children home that day least their minds be poisoned by the venomous Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama meets with Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, on St. Patrick's Day, today, March 17, 2015, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.

Then there was North Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson's vulgar, unprecedented "you lie" outburst during Obama's first State of the Union address concerning the president's proposed health care -- or the ObamaCare that Republicans so passionately hate. Wilson apologized to the president after his colleagues on both sides of the aisle took him to task. However a few weeks later Wilson used his nasty outburst as a fundraising tool later on.

But the letter to Iran, co-signed by 47 Republican senators is a bridge to far. Written by GOP freshman Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and signed by 46 of his colleagues, the letter warned Iranian leaders how the U.S. Constitution works and warned that any executive agreement made with Obama could be undone with "the stroke of a pen," by the next president (who they undoubtedly hope will be a Republican). The letter also said congress could modify or abrogate any treaty made by the Obama administration.

As one lawmaker said in a television interview, just imagine if in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis a group of senators wrote a letter to the then Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev that any agreement made with President Kennedy could be repealed or rejected by congress.

What is happening here is not simply a disagreement with the White House over matters of policy, but it smacks of something for more personal, something approaching a naked hatred that leads the far right and its fellow travelers to react in a knee jerk fashion to anything the President says or does. If Obama announced the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, a cabal of Republicans might feel duty bound to declare that a lie.

It's beginning to strain credulity to believe this GOP antipathy against Obama is just about policy.



EDITOR'S NOTE: Earl Morgan's column appears in The Jersey Journal every Wednesday.