In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Over at MoJo, Kevin Drum takes a look at yesterday's story about Ehud Olmert running Bush's foreign policy and asks the Burning Questions:

There are, of course, many things you could say about this. But the question that most piques my curiosity is: Why? Why would Olmert tell this story? Sure, he's bragging for a local audience, but what's the point? It's not as if he's running for anything these days. And he has to know that a story like this will embarrass the American government on a whole bunch of different levels. So why do it? Is he an idiot? Does he just not care anymore? What's the deal?

In which my reponse is "You're asking the wrong question, KD."

The question you should be asking is why both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are silent when given a perfect opportunity to turn around and tell the wildly unpopular outgoing Israeli PM and the entire world that "This kind of thing won't happen in our State Department" with Obama's bully pulpit and Hillary's confirmation hearing. If there was ever a better opportunity to say the next administration would be different from Bush on Israel, this would be it. "With all due respect to the Prime Minister..." would be the response Obama or Hillary would be giving to ANY other world leader who bragged like Olmert did.

But there's nothing out of the Obama's camp about Olmert's comments. And the answer to both Kevin's set of questions and my own in response is the same: AIPAC has bought and paid for Washington, both the left and the right. And that includes our new President and his foreign policy team.

It's the worst kept secret on Earth. It's the main reason why the United States can never be an agent of peace in the Middle East, because we're nothing more than the armed adjunct of Israel. And until we detach ourselves from Tel Aviv, there will never be any improvement there.