NEVER GONNA HAPPEN: Team Obama should just accept they failed with Iran.

David Harsanyi:

Republicans “drove the car in the ditch … and now they want the keys back.”

For years, President Barack Obama would trot out this analogy to attack his rivals’ fecklessness and obstructionism. How could the very same people who got us into the financial crisis lecture those who were getting us out of it?

Well, after driving the United States into a foreign-policy wreck, it’s time for former members of the Obama administration to ask themselves the same question.
According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has recovered documents that demonstrate Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. These clandestine plans for five 10-kiloton nuclear warheads were hidden and stored by Iran while it was developing a ballistic-missile program that would be able to carry them to Tel Aviv.

So not only did the United States end up saving the Islamic Republic from economic ruin with the Iran deal, it allowed the nation to solidify its foothold in Syria and strengthen its terrorist proxy Hezbollah. And not only did the Obama administration allow a humanitarian disaster to unfold in Syria while it was placating Russia to save the deal, it destroyed a sanctions program that was working.

On top of that, we also now know that the Iran deal was sold to the American public in bad faith. Yet, even after these revelations came to light, the former Obama aides who established a media echo chamber meant to silence critics and mislead citizens were still taunting and whining from sidelines, offering one bizarre justification after the next to continue the charade.

Read the whole thing.

I’M EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Landmines left behind by the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign might soon start detonating—on Democrats.

Obama concealed his sharp-edged, Chicago-style machine politics under the rhetorical cover of progressivism. He was protected by a press corps that first enlisted in his administration and then fought to stop Donald Trump. But now that Obama is out of office, his ability to intimidate is much diminished. This past week, a 2005 picture of a beaming Obama next to a bright-eyed Louis Farrakhan surfaced, after having been held back for more than a decade at the behest of a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who had been tried for corruption by Obama’s Justice Department after he refused to toe the party line about the “peace-loving” mullahs of Iran, has now seen the charges against him dropped. Z Street, a hawkish nonprofit supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel, had been tied up with IRS matters since 2009; it has just been released from its legal chains. Democrats are holding to the line that the prophet of hope and change ran a pure administration, virtually free of scandal. But the memo is probably just the beginning; we’re likely to see many more revelations come out.

Obama isn’t directly mentioned in the memo. But he’s nonetheless implicated through his appointees’ apparent efforts to clear Hillary Clinton in her State Department email scandal while undermining her opponent, Trump, through the veneer of legality provided by FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Security Act) warrants, justified solely by the so-called Steele Dossier. The dossier was paid for by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee; it was created by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who despised Trump, and the “research” firm Fusion GPS. The FISA Court, supervised by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, was never told about the unverified dossier’s origins.

I had been assured by the highest authorities that the Obama Administration was amazingly scandal-free.

CHUCK SCHUMER: ‘BDS Supporters Will Be Defeated’

Schumer argued that the Obama administration should have vetoed Resolution 2334, which declared Israeli settlements to be a violation of international law, in December and said the U.S. “should never use the United Nations as a forum to put pressure on Israel of any kind.”

Schumer slammed the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement as a “deeply biased campaign aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish State.”

“There’s no greater example than this insidious effort to harm the Jewish State than through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions,” he said. “The global BDS movement is a deeply biased campaign aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish State and its supporters, sometimes wittingly, sometimes unwittingly, but all of them practice a modern form of anti-Semitism, and we have to call them out for that.”

Schumer said the BDS movement is silent about the human rights abuses happening in the Middle East.

“BDS condemns Israel and seek to impose boycotts solely on the Jewish State, but willfully turn a blind eye to nations that actually violate human rights. When Iran sponsors terror and executes dissenters, BDS movement is quiet. When Arab nations jail journalists and punish homosexuality with prison sentences and physical abuse, BDS is nowhere to be found,” he said.

President Obama helped unleash a wave of “legitimized” Jew-hatred in a fit of pique against Benjamin Netanyahu.

MORE ON TRUMP-NETANHYAHU MEETING: Trump, Netanyahu to Reset US-Israeli Relations After Strained 8 Years.

Schanzer believes both the Iran deal and the settlements issue can be addressed without too much controversy.

“With the settlements, there was common ground reached by Bush and Ariel Sharon, which allowed Israelis to continue to build in areas that already have significant Israeli population,” Schanzer said, referring to former President George W. Bush and Sharon, a former Israeli prime minister.

Schanzer added it might be difficult to undo the entire Iran nuclear deal, which relieved sanctions on the country, and was agreed upon by the United States and five other countries. However, it’s likely Trump will enforce the agreement in a way Obama would not.

“It will be about rigorous enforcement of the deal and not allowing Iran to cheat even in minor ways,” Schanzer said. “The Obama administration wouldn’t enforce this out of fear the deal would unravel. Trump doesn’t care about Obama’s foreign policy legacy.”

Bingo.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Senior Israeli Diplomat Dore Gold Says Obama’s Arrogance Hurt Relationship with Israel.

The interview (in Hebrew) started with Gold relating a story from the funeral of Shimon Peres four months ago. He spoke of Prime Minister Netanyahu greeting each world leader who came to the funeral individually. As each leader left, Netanyahu shook their hands and exchanged a few niceties. Suddenly there was a phone call from Air Force One which along with the crew carried President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton, and Secretary of State [never will be president] John Kerry.

Yoav Horowitz, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, answered the phone because the Prime Minister was trying to see off the other leaders

“Tell your boss that if he wants a funeral like Peres’, he should begin to move, to go forward.” the American voice on the other end said. Horowitz passed on the message immediately. “Tell him,” Netanyahu responded, “that I give up the honor, because I have no intention of participating in the funeral of my country.”

So what Obama was trying to say to Netanyahu in his crass manner, If you “move forward” then you will be world-famous and admired and you will have a splendid funeral like Peres with dozens of world leaders coming to pay tribute.

Can you imagine the chutzpah it must take to tell an elected foreign leader what kind of funeral he’s going to get?

THAT VOW WAS JUST FOR THE RUBES: Whatever happened to that smooth presidential transition Obama vowed?

Andrew Malcolm:

Since Obama vowed to run a smooth presidential transition, what’s the real point of picking a tardy diplomatic scuffle with Putin? What’s the real point of setting Israel (and the annoying Netanyahu) adrift at the United Nations now?

Why issue all these offshore drilling bans and new federal regulations? Why commute more federal prison sentences than a dozen past presidents combined? Why keep releasing Guantanamo terrorists when so many return to their homicidal careers?

Might it be to plant political IEDs for his annoying successor, as Democrats seek to restore their party? For the first time in nearly a century a former president decided to reside in Washington. Obama has rented a mansion and office space where he’ll be easily accessible to media friends for, say, kibitzing his successor – unlike Obama’s predecessor, who went silent for more than a year.

Obama is the Loki of presidential politics.

THE HILL: Israel will share ‘evidence’ of Obama-UN collusion with Trump, ambassador says.

Israel’s ambassador the United States says his country will share evidence with President-elect Donald Trump that the Obama administration was behind a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned Israel’s settlements in Palestinian territory, though the ambassador did not offer the evidence when pressed in a CNN interview.

“We will present this evidence to the new administration through the appropriate channels, and if they want to share it with the American people they are welcome to do it,” Israel’s ambassador, Ron Dermer, told CNN on Monday.

The Security Council voted 14-0 Friday on a resolution that condemns Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory as a “flagrant violation” of international law” and demands a halt to “all Israeli settlement activities” as “essential for salvaging the two-state solution.”

The United States, which has veto power in the Security Council, abstained from the vote, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy to shield Israel from U.N. condemnation and allowing the resolution to pass.

The move prompted widespread backlash against Obama from Republicans and Democrats alike.

It also infuriated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who already has a shaky relationship with Obama. Netanyahu accused the United States of “colluding” with the United Nations in secret and summoned the U.S. ambassador on Sunday.

In the Monday interview, Dermer also accused the United States of being behind the resolution.

The good news is, it provides Trump with an excuse to defund the UN.

EVEN THE WAPO IS AGHAST AT OBAMA’S PARTING FUCK-YOU TO ISRAEL: The Obama administration fires a dangerous parting shot. “Israeli officials charged that the abstention represented a vindictive parting shot by Mr. Obama at Mr. Netanyahu, with whom he has feuded more bitterly than he did with most U.S. adversaries.”

Related: Obama’s Anti-Israel Tantrum: The U.N. resolution is a defining act of Obama’s Presidency. “It defines this President’s extraordinary ability to transform matters of public policy into personal pique at adversaries. And it defines the reality of the international left’s implacable opposition to the Israeli state.”

Meanwhile we’re supposed to worry about Trump. Plus: “For Donald Trump, meet your State Department. This is what State’s permanent bureaucrats believe, this is what they want, and Barack Obama delivered it to them.”

And look at the pic of Samantha Power accompanying the Post piece. The failure, and resulting bitterness, of the last eight years are written all over her.

UPDATE: Richard Fernandez on Facebook:

The most instructive thing about Obama’s Security Council abstention is he didn’t have the guts to do it earlier, when he stood to lose something by doing it. Only after he calculated there was nothing more to squeeze from that particular quarter did he run up the Jolly Roger. Had it cost him it would have meant something, even as a gesture.

But even more interesting was his willingness to damage the Democratic party who he’s leaving with political bill, not to mention the fact that the policy his abstention represents makes little sense.

Israel is likely to emerge as a linchpin in the region, after Obama’s power vacuum bomb reduces the nearby countries to waste. If Turkey and Iran fall apart, which is not inconceivable, then Obama will have antagonized the last man standing.

It was bad timing and pointless, like a punch thrown by a fighter lying on the canvas — at the referee. That would leave his legacy a consistently dysfunctional whole: conceived in delusion, executed in incompetence.

Yeah, that’ pretty much covers it. Though “executed in incompetence and spite” would be more accurate still.

MORE: Andrew McCarthy: Barack Obama’s Betrayal of Israel is a Black Day for American Diplomacy. “It is a disgraceful legacy of Barack Obama that his obsession over settlements and antipathy toward Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu — traits he shares with his old radical comrade, Rashid Khalidi — have made the already dim prospects for peace far more remote. . . . Israel did not set out to conquer the disputed territory. The Jewish state took it fair and square when they won the defensive war against enemies that sought Israel’s destruction. Thus the unending pattern that the United States and Western European powers cravenly refuse to address: Islamic factions and nations are free to reserve the right to eradicate Israel, but Israel must pretend the aggression never happened and the continuing threat does not exist.”

Plus: “That, alas, is Obama’s real legacy: There are no good-faith disputes with him; you either agree with him or you are an outlaw.”

And that’s the irony. Trump, who’s about making deals, is cast as the authoritarian. Obama, who demands submission, is not.

Related: Flashback 2009: The Turn Against Israel.

NEW YORK POST: Why Israel fears Obama’s last days.

Israel faces a unique window of danger from Nov. 9 to Jan. 20: What might President Obama do in his final days in office to slam the Jewish state?

Start with Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent flat refusal to promise a US veto on any upcoming anti-Israel resolution in the UN Security Council.

On Saturday, Haaretz reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Kerry he’s counting on Washington to stick to its policy of nixing anti-Israel resolutions. Kerry’s reply: The administration has yet to make a decision on the matter.

For Kerry to leave any doubt that America would shield Israel at the United Nations is bad enough. But concerns about what Team Obama might do go far beyond that.

Read the whole thing.

It’s also possible, likely even, that January 20 won’t mark the end of Obama’s mischief-making.

QUESTION ASKED: What are Netanyahu and Putin plotting?

In an appearance before the UN Security Council on Aug. 29, Nikolay Mladenov, a Russian and the UN envoy for peace in the Middle East, sharply criticized Israel’s policies in the territories. His criticism included harsh statements regarding the onset of recently announced construction work on units in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem and the new “carrot and stick” policies of Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman toward West Bank Palestinians. Mladenov emphasized that Israel’s settlement policy thwarts chances for peace, and he used extremely sharp language in criticizing the Israeli government. Jerusalem released an angry response instead of turning the other cheek.

There are a number of behind-the-scenes observers who believe this is all being staged, an act designed to mollify the Palestinians. Before the summit, Abbas will lay down conditions that Israel will have great difficulty in meeting, that is, a settlement construction freeze and the release of “pre-Oslo” Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Mladenov’s harsh statements were designed to show the Palestinians that Russia is pro-Palestinian, and therefore they should transfer their negotiating eggs from the American basket to the Russians’ basket.

Sources involved in negotiations told Al-Monitor that the entire sequence of events has been meticulously planned by Putin and Netanyahu, but with different objectives.

Read the whole thing.

SPOILER ALERT: It ends with President Obama looking feckless once again.

SENATE REPORT: STATE DEPARTMENT FUNDED EFFORT TO OVERTHROW NETANYAHU.

As Jennifer Rubin adds at the Washington Post, “Netanyahu survived the election, of course, and Obama will not face the voters again. Nevertheless, the report won’t help the unprecedentedly antagonistic relationship between the U.S.’s and Israel’s elected leaders. If an Israeli NGO had attempted to do the same in an American election, there would be howls of protest. No matter who the next president is, the U.S.-Israel relationship is likely to improve. Nevertheless, Obama’s successor would do well to apologize to Israel for the current president’s divisiveness.”

THE HATEFUL EIGHT YEARS: “Who is Mr. Netanyahu at war with? To watch the Frontline special, you’d think that it wasn’t the Iranians or the Palestinians or anyone else actually taking up arms against Israel, but rather Obama’s theory of history. No real war, no real consequences, just two men and their competing ideas. It’s the stuff public broadcasting dreams are made of.”

Because for the left, failures are always due to messaging, never their ideology. No wonder they’d frame Netanyahu through the same prism.

RICHARD NIXON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress:

President Barack Obama announced two years ago he would curtail eavesdropping on friendly heads of state after the world learned the reach of long-secret U.S. surveillance programs.

But behind the scenes, the White House decided to keep certain allies under close watch, current and former U.S. officials said. Topping the list was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The U.S., pursuing a nuclear arms agreement with Iran at the time, captured communications between Mr. Netanyahu and his aides that inflamed mistrust between the two countries and planted a political minefield at home when Mr. Netanyahu later took his campaign against the deal to Capitol Hill.

The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. That raised fears—an “Oh-s— moment,” one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.

Related: “Your Employer Can’t Stop You From Recording Conversations At Work.”

That’s pretty much been Barry’s motto, hasn’t it?

Also Related: Minneapolis Councilwoman and Black Lives Matter Supporter Doxxes Critics Writing to Her, Then Plays the Victim Card When She Is Criticized for Doxxing Her Critics.

ROGER SIMON: From Paris to San Berdoo, Obama’s War on Western Civ Continues.

To lay the blame for what happened Wednesday in San Bernardino on Barack Obama might seem excessive. But if not on him, who? From the day he took office, the president has been engaged in a game of outright denial that Islam has anything to do with what is wrong in the world.

In fact, if he ever points a finger, it’s usually at Western imperialism or Christianity or Republicans or Benjamin Netanyahu (to name a few of his favorite enemies).

But never at the I-word.

To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, “When somebody says it’s not about Islam, it’s about Islam.”

Syed Farook did not go to Saudi Arabia to study Zen Buddhism. America, and its trailing entities in Europe, has a problem now of gargantuan proportions. Barack Obama was and is precisely the wrong man, possibly the worst conceivable man, to be president of the United States at this point in history.

Obama’s worldview is not one that’s beneficial to the United States.

Plus: “The literal DESPERATION to keep blaming the San Bernardino carnage on ‘workplace grievances’ as CNN is still doing is nothing short of delusional and an example of the cognitive disorder engulfing our media and the left in the face of radical Islam.”

UPDATE: Yeah, pretty much:

PROMISE MEETS EXPIRATION DATE: Barack Obama in 2008:

“I just want to be absolutely clear. Alright, So I don’t want any misunderstanding when you all go home and you are talking to your buddies and you say, ah ‘He wants to take your guns away.’ You’ve heard it here, I’m on television so everybody knows it. I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people’s lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won’t take your handgun away.”

Barack Obama today:

President Obama delivered an angry statement on the Thursday shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, OR. “Each time we see one of these mass shootings,” he said from the White House briefing room podium, “our thoughts and prayers are not enough.

In a 15-minute statement, Obama stressed that the US is “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every couple of months.” He praised the gun control efforts in Australia, a nation that conducted a mass confiscation of firearms from its citizenry.

As Ben Shapiro adds, “President Obama was having a bad political day on Thursday:”

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin had humiliated him in Syria, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had excoriated his Iran deal before the United Nations, and his Secret Service had been caught leaking information about a Republican congressperson.

Then the clouds parted for the deeply cynical president — the same president who routinely ignores shootings in inner cities across the country, or attributes them to generalized American racism. News broke of a mass shooting at a community college in Oregon. And before waiting to find out all the facts, he leapt directly into political controversy, redirecting the national conversation once again toward useless gun control measures.

And the palace guard MSM are all too happy to play along.

THIS FROM THE GUY WHO SENT HIS OWN CONSULTANTS TO TRY AND DEFEAT BIBI: Obama says Israeli interference in US affairs over Iran deal unprecedented.

Related: “It’s the kind of dark, nasty stuff we might expect to hear at a white power rally, not from the President of the United States—and it’s gotten so blatant that even many of us who are generally sympathetic to the administration, and even this deal, have been shaken by it.”

ABANDONED IS PUTTING IT LIGHTLY: Israel’s former Ambassador to the US: “How Obama Abandoned Israel“:

Mr. Obama posed an even more fundamental challenge by abandoning the two core principles of Israel’s alliance with America.

The first principle was “no daylight.” The U.S. and Israel always could disagree but never openly. Doing so would encourage common enemies and render Israel vulnerable. . . . And yet, immediately after his first inauguration, Mr. Obama put daylight between Israel and America. . . .

The other core principle was “no surprises.” President Obama discarded it in his first meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, in May 2009, by abruptly demanding a settlement freeze and Israeli acceptance of the two-state solution. The following month the president traveled to the Middle East, pointedly skipping Israel and addressing the Muslim world from Cairo.

Israeli leaders typically received advance copies of major American policy statements on the Middle East and could submit their comments. But Mr. Obama delivered his Cairo speech, with its unprecedented support for the Palestinians and its recognition of Iran’s right to nuclear power, without consulting Israel. . . .

The abandonment of the “no daylight” and “no surprises” principles climaxed over the Iranian nuclear program. . . .

Finally, in 2014, Israel discovered that its primary ally had for months been secretly negotiating with its deadliest enemy. The talks resulted in an interim agreement that the great majority of Israelis considered a “bad deal” with an irrational, genocidal regime. Mr. Obama, though, insisted that Iran was a rational and potentially “very successful regional power.”

The daylight between Israel and the U.S. could not have been more blinding. And for Israelis who repeatedly heard the president pledge that he “had their backs” and “was not bluffing” about the military option, only to watch him tell an Israeli interviewer that “a military solution cannot fix” the Iranian nuclear threat, the astonishment could not have been greater.

 Obama has been an unmitigated disaster for US-Israeli relations. 

THE CRUMBLING TEFLON PRESIDENCY?:  Jeffrey Toobin has a piece in The New Yorker today called “Obama’s Game of Chicken with the Supreme Court.”  His thesis is that if the Supreme Court rules against the Obama Administration in the Obamacare subsidy case, King v. Burwell, the blame for the loss of subsidies of individuals living in States without State-operated health insurance exchanges will not fall on the Republicans’ shoulders, but the President’s:

If the Obama Administration loses in the Supreme Court, the political pain will fall almost exclusively on the President and his Party. To paraphrase Colin Powell and the Pottery Barn rule, President Obama will have broken health care, so he owns it. To the vast mass of Americans who follow politics casually or not at all, Obamacare and the American system of health care have become virtually synonymous. This may not be exactly right or fair, but it’s a reasonable perception on the part of most people. . . .If the Supreme Court rules against him, the President can blame the Justices or the Republicans or anyone he likes, and he may even be correct. But the buck will stop with him.

Toobin says this reluctantly, but at least he says it.

Toobin’s overall sentiment–that a ruling for the plaintiffs in King will be a political loss for President Obama (as it should be, since it was his decision to disregard the plain language of his own signature legislation)–is likely correct.  But what’s even more noteworthy is that it evinces that the Teflon President’s non-stick coating is finally wearing a little  thin with (at least some in) the mainstream media. Unfortunately, the criticism is mostly limited to foreign policy. Evidence of such Teflon thinning includes the Washington Post’s editorial board’s skepticism about the Iran nuclear deal (including his failure to respond to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s arguments before Congress), longtime Democratic pollster Pat Caddell’s recent statement that the Obama Administration is more corrupt than Nixon’s, Chris Matthews’ thrill dissipating to the point where he has called Obama “intellectually lazy,” Kirsten Powers’ criticism of Obama on the ISIS persecution of Christians, and Jon Stewart’s “je suis to be kidding me” quip about Obama’s failure to attend the unity rally in Paris following the Charlie Hebdo terrorism–something veteran liberal foreign affairs expert Leslie Gelb labeled a “horrendous gaffe” that “demonstrated beyond argument that the Obama team lacks the basic instincts and judgment necessary to conduct U.S. national security policy in the next two years.”

Of course there are many, many other liberals/progressives in the mainstream media who continue to stick their heads in the sand and dare not criticize the Great Leader on anything.  But it is good to see that, for at least some of them, they are beginning to see that the Emperor has no clothes.

ROGER SIMON: Why Netanyahu’s Victory Augurs Well for Republicans in 2016. “And this all happened despite Obama’s get-out-the-vote henchmen being sent over to Israel – with a yet unclear degree of administration backing – to support the Zionist Union (i. e. Labor Party) opposition to Likud with all their modern electoral techniques that were so successful in 2012. This makes their failure all the more glaring – and disturbing to the administration. Another loser in all this is Obama’s Iran deal, assuming that would ever happen anyway. It makes the 47 senators who sent an open letter to Khamenei seem more than ever the deliverers of simple truth.”

WELL, OBAMA SENT HIS CHICAGO CREW TO BEAT HIM, AND THEY HAVE THOUSANDS OF YEARS’ WORTH OF DEAD PEOPLE TO VOTE OVER THERE: Bibi in Serious Trouble with Only Days to Go Until Election: Making sense of why Netanyahu is performing so badly in the polls.

FORMER OBAMA MIDDLE EAST ADVISER DENNIS ROSS throws Obama under the bus. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a strong case to the Congress about why he thinks the potential agreement with Iran on its nuclear program is a ‘very bad deal.'”

TWO THINGS PEOPLE ARE MISSING ABOUT NETANYAHU’S SPEECH: (1) He didn’t just make a case for why the U.S. should be harder on Iran. He made the case for unilateral Israeli military intervention too, sub silentio. (2) The most damaging thing to Obama here isn’t even the substance, but the contrast in style. Netanyahu, as someone said on Twitter, was better in his second language than Obama is in his first. And he presented himself as a leader who cares about his country, rather than one, like Obama, who makes excuses for its enemies.

ROGER KIMBALL: The Lessons Of Culture, Benjamin Netanyahu Edition.

Here we are on the eve of Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to both houses of the United States Congress. The Obama administration is acting like a petulant twelve-year-old —how dare the Prime Minister of Israel come to the United States and speak before Congress when he wasn’t invited by us? — and the rancid Pelosi-Reid contingent of the Democratic Party has promised to take their marbles and go home: they won’t even listen to what he has to say.

The ostensible issue is Iran, with which the Obama administration is currently capitula—er, negotiating. The presence of a Jew, and a Jew from Israel, in the nation’s capital (and Capitol) is sure to offend the Mullahs in Teheran and it might just upset the delicate diplomacy by which Obama privately assures that Iran gets nuclear weapons while publically pretending to prevent that eventuality.

Back in 2001, when Barack Obama was in the Illinois State Senate and still battening on the wisdom of the “Reverend” Jeremiah (“God-Damn America”) Wright, Netanyahu was more forthright, and more percipient, than most politicians about the Islamic terrorist attacks of 9/11. Those attacks, he said, were part of “a war to reverse the triumph of the West.”

Netanyahu was right then, and he is still right.

Well, that’s why so many lefties sympathize with the terrorists. They want to reverse the triumph of the West too.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ ON BARACK OBAMA: A QUESTION OF PERSONALITY:

When Giuliani told an audience ”I do not believe – and I know this is a horrible thing to say – but I do not believe that the President loves America,” he was inadvertently doing more than criticizing a president; he was in a manner of speaking, committing treason. The unprecedented firestorm of opprobrium that greeted Giuliani suggested that he had somehow hit a switch. It was like pushing an ordinary button in the wall and watching the skyscrapers out the window suddenly crumble in dust down into the ground.

What Giuliani had done was undermine Obama’s legitimacy. Because so much of Obama’s “power” comes from his special-ness that to question his patriotism is to strike at the basis for his governance. It was, as in a monarchy, tantamount to rebellion. The reason that similar remarks by Obama about George Bush’s patriotism evoked simple shrugs was because Bush was just an ordinary president, the latest in a line of politicians to occupy the office since George Washington.

But Obama is different. One cannot understand, for example, the vituperation vented by Dana Milbank at Scott Walker, calling him out for “cowardice”, arguing for his “disqualification” (yes those are the words) for the simple act of refusing to publicly repudiate Giuliani’s words about the president, unless one grasps this essential fact. Obama is different. The Obama phenomenon is founded so completely on his legend that to attack the legend is to undermine the very foundations of the tower on which he stands.

But this is not the first time the Obama myth has been directly impugned. The first major political figure to accidentally touch the Third Rail was Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has become an extraordinary hate object in the press, not because of any views he may hold on policy, but because Netanyahu had the temerity to disrespect Obama. Netanyahu must have been astonished by the charge of electricity that gave back on him.

Disrespect America, even attack it if you want, and you will not receive a tenth such voltage as did Netanyahu.

Obama is the New Class Idol, the embodiment of all the nomenklatura’s hopes and dreams — not so much for America, as for itself. Point out that he has feet — and ankles, and thighs, and torso, and head — of clay, and you threaten the whole feedlot.

AFTER SIX YEARS OF OBAMA RUNNING ROUGHSHOD OVER AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE UNDER THE FLAG OF “I WON,” AND “FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION,” James Fallows is now tugging his chin over Republican departures from interbranch comity. After the nuclear option, the ObamaCare “reconciliation” ram-through, and the executive order sprees, this deserves to be ignored, and it will be.

Plus: “What is not normal is for one country’s governments openly to meddle or take sides in another (friendly) country’s internal politics.” Really? Because Obama’s doing that with Israel’s elections right now. Fallows’ entire piece seems an exercise in special pleading. And chutzpah. You want civility and tradition? Try practicing it.