Double Standard

It is not yet clear what exactly was discussed with the Russians in the intercepted conversation(s) of General Flynn (and possibly others) before Trump's inauguration. But we do know what Barack Obama communicated to the Iranian mullahs before he was installed as president in 2009. And it clearly was subverting President Bush's nuclear negotiations with this country ... see: Powerline Blog. Ever-alert John Hinderaker has dig into his archives and found this parallel ... which, of course, was scrupulously ignored by the media back then ... except, in a random act of journalism,  by the New York Times. I doubt if it will repeat this mistake today.

Here are the most damning passages in Hinderaker's reverie:

... let’s not forget an infinitely bigger scandal: in 2008, while he was running for the presidency, Barack Obama deliberately undermined American foreign policy by secretly encouraging Iran’s mullahs to hold out until he became president, because he would be easier to deal with than President George Bush.

And:

The Iranians held firm to their position, perhaps because they knew that help was on the way, in the form of a new president. Barack Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3. At some point either before or after that date, but prior to the election, he secretly let the Iranians know that he would be much easier to bargain with than President Bush. 

And:

So Obama secretly told the mullahs not to make a deal until he assumed the presidency, when they would be able to make a better agreement. Which is exactly what happened: Obama abandoned the requirement that Iran stop enriching uranium, so that Iran’s nuclear program has sped ahead over the months and years that negotiations have dragged on. When an interim agreement in the form of a “Joint Plan of Action” was announced in late 2013, Iran’s leaders exulted in the fact that the West had acknowledged its right to continue its uranium enrichment program ...

 And it is now speculated by some in the media that General Flynn was submarined by Obama holdovers, ironically, because of his hard line against Obama's resulting Iranian nuclear deal ... and he might have been trying to get the Russians to back away from its support of this travesty. Of course we won't really know the true nature of his intercepted conversation(s) unless they are released in unredacted form ... which is quite unlikely.