Frank Lautenberg, one of the Senate's most prominent Jewish figures, ripped John McCain on Wednesday for dishonestly portraying himself as a consistent hard-liner on Iran.
Responding to remarks made by the Arizona Republican's aides, in which they chastised Barack Obama for not supporting tough sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Lautenberg was quick to remind McCain of the tough sanctions bill that he has repeatedly opposed.
"When I attempted to close a glaring loophole in our Iran Sanctions law, Senator McCain voted to keep it open," Lautenberg told the Huffington Post. "That loophole still exists today, and allows more revenue to flow to Iran. When it was time to take a tough, principled stand against Iran, Barack Obama was there. John McCain wasn't."
Lautenberg's was referring to an amendment he introduced in July 2005 that would have closed a loophole allowing U.S. corporations to use foreign shell companies to do business with terrorist-sponsoring nations. The provision was supported by Democrats and neoconservatives alike (Frank Gaffney wrote called the loophole an "affront to the letter and spirit of the law"). But when it came to a vote, the tally was split virtually down party line -- Obama said yay, McCain, nay. The Senate, attempting to save face, passed a watered down version, reiterating the status quo, soon thereafter.
That vote has been largely ignored during campaign-related discussions on Iran, save for a late June press conference organized by the National Jewish Democratic Council to draw attention to the issue. And McCain, himself, has asserted that he has consistently supported strong divestment measures.
"I've never favored investment," he told a questioner during a media availability on June 4.
Since the launch of the general election - peaking with Iran's testing of weapons this week -- the McCain campaign has sought to paint Obama as "consistently weak on Iran." On Wednesday, aides to the Arizona Republican hosted a conference call in which they took their rival to task for not supporting the Kyl-Lieberman amendment designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
Reminded that Obama had co-sponsored the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, which called on the president to "designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a Foreign Terrorist Organization," Randy Schunamen, McCain's foreign policy adviser, made the distinction between introducing legislation and casting a vote on it.
"The reality is," he said, "I'm sure the Obama campaign is pushing their co-sponsorship of a bill as if somehow that substitutes for taking a position on something that actually came to a vote, like designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. That's a clever ploy on his part, but I don't think anyone should be deceived. He opposed it and was criticized by his fellow Democrats for opposing it."
The same, Lautenberg argues, can be said of McCain's failure to support his sanctions amendment.