It was during the Iraq conflict that then Senator Obama was reminded and had to remind himself as well: we only have one president at a time.

The fiddling 47 Republican Senators who decided to send threatening messages to Iran might also have taken note of this longstanding foreign policy reality before making themselves, their party and the US look more foolish with their juvenile correspondence suggesting Iran and anyone else could not rely on presidential negotiations.

I have hardly become an enduring fan of the current White House after numerous confusing and disagreeable actions.

However, it would never have occurred to anyone I know to bypass the President of the US in the middle of sensitive negotiations with a foreign power and to do so as the Fiddling 47 have done.

On the other hand, perhaps these lollygogging legislators must have learned their methods from Matthew Yglesias’ popular book of some years ago titled "Head in the Sand: How Republicans Screw up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.

Of course, one of the harmful realities is that this letter-writing-tomfoolery comes as so much of the rest of our political confusion is so clearly on display with Republicans and Democrats trying to prove they actually have candidates worthy of voters’ confidence in the next presidential election.

No one can say we don’t open our doors to just about anyone and everyone to tell us how to run our country.

Bibi Netanyahu seemed quite at home at the Congressional rostrum. Perhaps with the latest partisan palaver, it might not be unreasonable if the Ayatollah Khomeini suggests he also is entitled to explain his fatwa to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel.

Or could all this embarrassing expression of American politics merely be due to what happens as spring approaches?

Joe Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, Wash.