Heh... Gotta Laugh To Keep From Crying. OR SCREAMING...

Here's Donna Cassata of AP at TPM News:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday turned down an invitation to meet privately with Senate Democrats next week during his visit to Washington, saying the session "could compound the misperception of partisanship" surrounding his trip.

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Everybody got that? Good. Don't bother trying to explain it to me.

Let's see. A foreign head of state accepting an invitation outside diplomatic channels from America's House Speaker John Boehner (R) (an elected official whose office is undeniably partisan in character) to speak to Congress... that's not partisanship; go right ahead. That same leader accepting a subsequent invitation from Senate Democrats to speak to them... oh, no, can't have that; that would be partisanship.

When, exactly, did international diplomacy become the Speaker's purview? And how is it that Netanyahu, a foreign national, became the one to decide that?

From our viewpoint, both these men
lean to the right

Before Nothin'‑yahoo became the effective dictator of Israel, I used to be a supporter, hell, even an admirer, of Israel. Bibi has just about cured me of that. And I'm not the only American to have experienced the revelation that Israel is no longer "the Middle East's only democracy," even if it once was. Actually, sometimes it seems Israel is America's 51^st state... but you know that isn't so, because no other state has nearly that much unrestrained influence on our federal government.

Netan-yahoo Invades US Politics

David Jackson at USA Today:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his demands that the United States step up pressure on Iran's nuclear program have nothing to do with the U.S. presidential election.

"What's guiding me, contrary to what I have read in the United States, is not the American political calendar, " Netanyahu said on CNN's State of the Union. "It's the Iranian nuclear calender."

Netanyahu said "we know they (the Iranians) are working toward a (nuclear) weapon," and he wants the Obama administration to draw a "red line" that Iran cannot cross without inviting military action.

Such a red line "actually reduces the chance of a military conflict" because Iran will pull back its enrichment process rather than risk war, Netanyahu said.

Obama administration officials say economic sanctions are working in Iran, and have urged Israel not to launch any pre-emptive military action of its own.

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Oh, give me a break... Benjamin Netanyahu reminds me a great deal of George W. Bush: a mean-spirited, reckless cowboy, a small child prone to tantrums when he doesn't get his way. And why not: with tantrums, he often gets his way. Israelis may like this guy, and the US may back Israel, but the two-year-old child has no business drawing the US into a preemptive, invasive war against yet another country that poses minimal military threat to the US. If Israel is so goddamned sure Iran is about to have nukes, but doesn't have them yet, let Israel bomb those presumably secret sites... what do we provide Israel all that high-tech weaponry for, if not so they can defend themselves? Why must the US change their diapers?

If Netanyahu insists on attacking Iran now, let him do it without American help. Israel is threatening a preemptive invasion, much like the one GeeDubya perpetrated against Iraq; we all saw how well that worked out for America. Now Bibi wants a second helping, and has shown clear signs of taking sides in the US presidential election in favor of Rmoney.

A word to the "wise": Bibi... keep your hands off our elections. If you meddle, you might just give us ideas about doing the same in Israel's politics. You wouldn't want that, I'm sure.