Sen. Grassley should be ashamed

To the editor:

I expected Joni Ernst to jump on any bandwagon which undermined President Barack Obama, but I am disappointed and discouraged by Sen. Chuck Grassley's actions and weak explanations.

I often disagree with Sen. Grassley's politics, but have always felt that he had a reasoned approach to his political dealings. Not so any more! This letter to the Iranian leaders was an insult to our president, to the American people, and to the Iranian people. The very idea that Iranian leaders and their people would be ignorant of our process is ridiculous. I have always found in my world travels that people in other countries are better informed of our politics and the process than we are, and I would expect that to be true in Iran as well.

We have heard from Republican aides that they considered this letter to be a humorous thing, and now we hear that Sen. Grassley says 'What harm is it going to do?”.

I believe that if you listen to the world news reports, you will hear that is has done great harm to our credibility around the world. The 'gotcha” climate in Washington politics has to change. This was not, and in no way should be considered, a common-sense approach as Sen. Grassley intimated. In this case, age and experience do not equate to wisdom. Please, Sen. Grassley, make an attempt to represent Iowa and its citizens with a thoughtful, reasoned, non-partisan approach.

Carol Samuelson

Iowa City