Kelly Ayotte: ‘Interesting to be criticized about a letter that quotes the U.S. Constitution’
U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte has received withering criticism from constituents and local editorial boards for signing an open letter to the leaders of Iran suggesting negotiations with President Obama are essentially a waste of time.
“It’s not every day that a United States senator attempts to undermine U.S. foreign policy and weaken the nation in one cursive swoop,” wrote the editors of the Concord Monitor. “When Ayotte signed her name on that piece of paper, she cast her lot with a thoughtless brand of politics splintered from the thread of American diplomatic history. Time and future negotiations will reveal the damage done.”
Her hometown newspaper, the Telegraph, called the act shameful and stupid. “Although the scolding letter sent this week to Iranian leaders by 47 self-satisfied Republican U.S. senators isn’t, as some suggest, treasonous, it’s in the neighborhood,” they wrote. “And while it wouldn’t be a stretch to argue the letter is unpatriotic, we’ll settle for calling it shameful and stupid.”
Yesterday, Ayotte was on Fox News in an attempt to deflect the criticism. Her response, in which she downplayed the serious nature of the senators’ act and characterized the criticism as a distraction, is unlikely to silence critics.
“It’s interesting to be criticized about a letter that quotes the United States Constitution,” Ayotte said. “I think that, in some ways, there’s been a lot made about this letter to try to distract from the underlying issue, which the administration does not want Congress to have a say on something so important when it comes to the security of the United States of America.”