I’ve been following the mishigas involving Speaker Boner’s, uh, boner in inviting Netanyahu to speak to Congress throughout my time in the Carnival bubble. I guess it’s payback for Bibi’s essentially endorsing Willard Mittbot Romney in 2012. The whole mishigas is objectionable in so many ways: it enables Bibi to lobby Congress to sabotage sensitive negotiations with Iran, plus there’s an Israeli general election is coming up soon and an unpopular Netanyahu is clinging to office. Unfortunately, Israel’s multi-party system, the collapse of the Israeli left, and an inept Labor party campaign is more likely than not going to let him ooze back into power with another unstable and obnoxious right wing coalition.
Josh Marshall has done a great job covering the story at TPM but the MSM’s take on it has been ludicrous, as pointed out by my man Jim Newell at Salon:
This is a tiddlywinks way of approaching the real problem with the invitation, focusing on bad dinner-table manners without delving into the more serious subtext. It’s Wolf Blitzer-esque in its superficiality. Fittingly, the CNN article is accompanied by a brief clip of Wolf Blitzer talking about it, in the same tenor that he might talk about Kanye West’s treatment of Beck at the Grammys — that this begins and ends as a story about a social faux-pas.
Who cares whether Boehner gave the White House a “heads up” or not? There’s a big difference between a “heads up” or “notification,” on the one hand, and a “consultation” on the other. A “heads up” or “notification” implies that Boehner had already made up his mind to extend the invitation. If he had already decided to send the invitation, it’s not important whether he called president with deets or sent a telegram or carrier pigeon down Pennsylvania Avenue. He certainly should have “consulted” with the White House before extending the invitation. The White House would have told him not to do it, though, which is why he didn’t consult with them.
The invitation was a big deal not because of the lack of the “heads up,” but because it was an explicit effort to sabotage the Obama administration’s foreign policy. Benjamin Netanyahu and a whole hell of a lot of influential Republican foreign policy people do not want any nuclear deal with Iran. They do not trust Iran to adhere to any agreement that restricts them from obtaining nuclear weapons. Thus they consider diplomatic talks with Iran contrary to Western interests. They want to blow up the talks, and then they want to blow up Iran.
We’re back in familiar territory: IOKIYAR. Imagine if Speaker Pelosi had interfered with Bush administration negotiations aimed at resolving a major foreign policy issue. Boner, Chinless Mitch, and the whole gang would be calling her a traitor and demanding her ouster but IOKIYAR because they’re the daddy party or some such shit. Oy, such malakatude.
As for Bibi, this mishigas is an example of his colossal arrogance and blatant chutzpah. Israel is a client state of the United States and biting the hand that feeds you may be popular in some quarters but it’s downright stupid. He’s lucky that President Obama and Secretary Kerry are grownups as well as experienced politicians who recognize posturing when they see it.
Hopefully, this gambit will backfire but all Netanyahu needs to form the next Israeli government is to win the most seats in the upcoming election. He doesn’t need a majority to do so, which should give pause to those Americans who dream of a multi-party system.
As for Speaker Boner, he ought to be ashamed of himself for openly taking sides in another country’s election and for pandering once again to the chickenhawks and rapturists in his party. Remember Jeb Bush, moderate Republican? He just weighed in to support Bibi’s speech. His father, of course, had similar issues with an arrogant right wing Israeli PM, Yitzhak Shamir. So much for the Jebster’s foreign policy being more like the old man’s than his nitwit brother’s.
While I was looking at my pulp fiction file for this morning’s post, I stumbled upon the book cover below. If they were still doing this book, Bibi’s boner would surely be, uh, inserted:
The eternal game of “What if a Democrat did this?” always ends depressingly the same: The next time Republicans fire up the old outrage machine, none of the millionaire journalists will remember this back-door meddling by House Republicans, but they’ll all stroke their chins sagely while listening to how horrible whatever it is the Democrats did.
It helps immensely not to have a conscience or sense of shame, and our very own Grand Old Party has successfully removed those encumbrances to full-blown demagoguery.
but its ok cause obama is a democrat. a BLACK democrat.