In the Trump era, journalists and hosts like to think they are truth tellers and that “democracy dies in darkness.” So it’s always good to look back, from time to time, at the Obama years. 2020 Debate moderator Rachel Maddow may despise the current Republican president, but she but she couldn’t restrain the gush when it came to Barack Obama. Four years ago this week, on July 14, 2015, Maddow hailed the achievement of “this American generation.”
Regarding the Iran nuclear deal, she rhapsodized, “People in the not too distant future will look back at this presidency, they’ll look back at this presidency and they’ll say, of course they gave him a Nobel Peace Prize. Of course they did.”
Maddow raved, “We don't know if the Iran deal is going to work. If it does, it will be the major foreign policy achievement, not only of this presidency, but of this American generation.”
For more examples from our flashback series, which we call NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
A transcript is below:
The Rachel Maddow Show
July 14, 2015
RACHEL MADDOW: The goal under president Barack Obama was to use those sanctions to instead get Iran to talk, to get them to the table to negotiate. And it worked. They came to the table, and they negotiated for 20 straight months. And lately, for 18 straight days without a break. And they've got a deal on the Iranian nuclear program and, yes, the right is going nuts. And The Washington Post editorial page will feel hot to the touch for several days. And Republicans will run ads about how terrible it is, and Congress will be full of people giving very excited speeches about it, even though they sometimes mix up Sunni and Shia and Iraq and Iran. And there will be noise in the beltway like you can't believe even as the vast majority of the American people continue to say they actually want this deal, they like this deal.
And, as yet, Washington might, as yet, screw this thing up. The Iranians might screw it up, in terms of their own government and their own hard liners. The Iranians might also cheat and blow the deal that way. There's all sort of ways this might yet get screwed up. But it might work. In which case, no war with Iran, which has been the threat of my lifetime, I'm 42. I have expected a war with Iran my entire life. If this works, no war with Iran. It also means no nuclear bomb in Iran. And it means this president will have achieved the only diplomatic world-transforming achievement big enough to make us forget all about him. Also ending 50 years of cartoonishly failed and ridiculous foreign policy toward Cuba, which he also did a few minutes ago. We don't know if the Iran deal is going to work. If it does, it will be the major foreign policy achievement, not only of this presidency, but of this American generation. At which point, people in the not too distant future will look back at this presidency, they'll look back at this president and they’ll say, of course they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize, of course they did.
