Panelists on MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday ripped the tone and content of President Obama's Wednesday speech trumpeting the Iran nuclear agreement, calling it overly political "small ball" that condescended to foes and presented "false choices."
Obama's address repeatedly warned that the alternative to the deal struck last month was eventual war, a claim that has been refuted by the nation's top military officials.
National Journal's Ron Fournier, who described himself as generally supportive of Obama's push for a nuclear agreement, blasted Obama for treating foes of the agreement like they were "stupid."
"It's such a reflection of where we are in politics," he said. "Stoking fear, dividing people, false choices, instead of trying to bring people along. If anything, I lean toward the president on this issue. I have all along. But when I hear him say if you don't agree with me right now you're stupid and you're a warmonger ... This a tough issue. It's not black-and-white. He's pretending it's black-and-white."
Several panelists took particular exception to Obama's quip that Iranian hard-liners who opposed the nuclear deal had "common cause with the Republican caucus."
"I would say there were probably 1,000 better ways to try to persuade people sitting on the fence than comparing Republicans who actually put on the uniform and fought in war over the past 10 years to the Ayatollah and the terrorists in Iran who are chanting 'Death to America,'" host Joe Scarborough said.
The Washington Post's David Ignatius said Republicans he spoke to felt "dissed" by Obama's comparison and accusation that they were warmongers.
"Right now, he's playing small ball," Ignatius said. "Playing just enough to win."
Bloomberg's Mark Halperin said Obama's fiery rhetoric about the deal's opponents "alienated" people.
"The people he's offended are not just some members of Congress, but a lot of the Democratic donors, Jewish-American organizations, and people who are putting pressure on individual members of Congress to vote no," he said. "On a foreign policy issue of tremendous national security [importance], to use rhetoric like that really does narrow his ability to pass it and then have the country feel good about it, have the world feel good about it ... He has to rise above that stuff and he didn't yesterday on that rhetoric."