Dear editor:
Just a short time ago, I asked if anyone else shared my amazement at the intellectual prowess of Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton regarding his knowledge of the details of the negotiations with Iran, as well as his expert knowledge about the process of enriching uranium and the development of plutonium.
As amazed as I continue to be about Sen. Cotton, I am even more amazed at the recent comments made by Sen. John McCain, who happens to be the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Within the past few days, McCain made the following statements on a radio talk show in regard to the different versions of the negotiated nuclear deal with Iran. And I quote, "John Kerry must have known what was in it, and yet chose to interpret it in another way. It's probably in black and white that the Ayatollah is probably right. John Kerry is delusional." I suspect that many Americans are just as amazed as I am to hear Sen. McCain suggest that if someone has interpreted the facts in another way about the negotiated nuclear deal, it must have been our Secretary of State John Kerry and not the supreme leader of Iran.
McCain and others have been diligent about making all of us aware that you can't trust the Iranians, that is, of course, unless it means taking the word of our secretary of state and the Obama administration. Perception is almost everything and, of course, the perception has to be that any deal supported by the Obama administration must be a bad deal and must be opposed.
In a recent Sunday editorial section of The Sentinel-Record, Jim Davidson elaborated about the importance of "perception." It's quite obvious that it is imperative for Republicans, even those who profess to be so patriotic, to create the perception that any deal agreed to by the Obama administration has to be a bad deal. Perception is everything, isn't it? Mr. Davidson goes on to say, "it is often how we perceive a person, a performance or an event that determines the value we place on them. If our minds are preconditioned to make a judgment based on something less than the revealed truth, we will often make mistakes and miss out on a great many things that have real value, even some things that could possibly change our lives for the better."
Don't get caught up in the perception that any deal made by the Obama administration and the leaders of Russia, China, France, Germany and Great Britain has to be a bad deal.
Ray Warner
Hot Springs
Editorial on 05/03/2015