Here is how The Stupid starts.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran lost his job in 1979. He died a year later in Cairo. That's 37 years ago, if you're keeping score at home. For 37 years, the United States and Iran have been dickering at the Hague over the settlement of an arms deal that this country cut with the Shah when he was our boy in that part of the world. (Saddam Hussein was our boy, too. Life was complicated back then.)

In January, possibly because everybody involved got tired of windmills and tulips and really good beer, the two countries finally settled matters. As Agence France-Presse reported at the time, the U.S. agreed to pay $400 million in cash and $1.3 billion in interest to settle the claim first filed on behalf of a government that had been overthrown for nearly four decades.

The repayment, which settles a suit brought under an international legal tribunal, is separate from the tens of billions of dollars in frozen foreign accounts that Iran can now access after the end of nuclear sanctions. But the timing of the announcement, one day after the implementation of the Iran nuclear accord, will be seen as pointing to a broader clearing of the decks between the old foes. US President Barack Obama defended the settlement in a televised statement from the White House, saying it was for "much less than the amount Iran sought." "For the United States, the settlement could save us billions of dollars that could have been pursued by Iran. There was no benefit to the United States in dragging this out," he said.

At the time of the settlement, obvious anagram Reince Priebus stomped his little feet and complained, probably because the settlement came hard on the heels of the Iranian nuclear deal and coincided with the release of four Americans who had been in Iranian custody. But the story faded from view until Wednesday, when The Stupid started in earnest, thanks to The Wall Street Journal via CNN:

President Barack Obama approved the $400 million transfer, which was the first payment of a $1.7 billion settlement resolving claims at an international tribunal at The Hague over a failed arms deal under the time of the Shah. The Iranians were seeking more than $10 billion at arbitration. Because existing US sanctions ban American dollars from being used in a transaction with Iran, officials said the money was procured from central banks in Switzerland and the Netherlands, and an unmarked cargo plane loaded with wooden pallets of Swiss francs, euros and other currencies were flown to Iran. The payment required hard currency, they said, because Iran could not access the global financial system due to international sanctions it was under at the time. The details of the transaction were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

And it begins.

The Republican nominee (via Politico):

Our incompetent Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was the one who started talks to give 400 million dollars, in cash, to Iran. Scandal!" Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, following a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday evening that cited U.S. and European officials, as well as congressional staff briefed on the details of the operation after the fact. As former secretary of state, Clinton has claimed credit for bringing Iran to the bargaining table through sanctions. The previously unreported $400 million sent in January was the first installment of the White House's $1.7 billion…

Wait. What? AFP reported on the transfer of the $400 million in January. WTF is this?

It is The Stupid. And it is spreading.

The Continetti Weekly Shopper:

The administration airlifted $400 million to Iran in January as Tehran released four Americans it had detained, causing critics to call the payment ransom money, which the White House denies. Blitzer asked Toner if there were any restrictions on how the Iranians could use the funds.

It's their fcking money, idiots. If we hadn't settled this case, you'd be asking whether or not we could restrict the $10 billion we had to pay out because the court ruled against the United States.

Hot Air:

The report goes on to relay non-denial denials from unnamed "senior officials" who claim the timing of the secret, cash delivery was merely coincidental and there was no quid pro quo with the Iranian government guaranteeing the release of the American prisoners once the cash was delivered. It just so happens that once the cash was delivered, the prisoners were released.

Well, yes.

Paul Ryan, noted public intellectual and zombie-eyed granny starver, via the DC Examiner:

"If true, this report confirms our longstanding suspicion that the administration paid a ransom in exchange for Americans unjustly detained in Iran," said Ryan, R-Wis. "It would also mark another chapter in the ongoing saga of misleading the American people to sell this dangerous nuclear deal. Yet again, the public deserves an explanation of the lengths this administration went to in order to accommodate the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism."

Biggest. Fake. Ever.

And, just speaking as someone who's been around for a while and has seen some things, is buying-off-Iran-to-release-American-prisoners really a charge that the Republican Party wants to toss around idly? Is that really a historical path that the Republicans want to walk again?

I'm willing if they are.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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