Although the Obama White House is, as expected, too petty and childish to congratulate the Prime Minister of one of our closest allied countries for his smashing victory last night, reports are starting to surface that might help to explain Obama’s unconscionable behavior. According to the Jerusalem Post, the White House appears to be in the first stage of grief — denial and isolation:
Privately, the White House is expressing deep disappointment with the result of Tuesday’s elections, which they believe reinforces some of the greatest points of tension inflaming the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s comments on the eve of the polls, apparently backing away from his support of a Palestinian state, particularly irked the president’s team.
Senior US officials were caught by a genuine sense of surprise with word of Isaac Herzog’s trouncing, as they had been relying on the same local polling data available to the public, two such officials told The Jerusalem Post. Other officials declined to characterize the White House reaction, reinforcing a generally muted and controlled response.
Some in the White House have moved into the second stage of grief – anger:
After several hours of public quiet, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest expressed “deep concern” with Netanyahu’s pre-election warning that Arab citizens were being bused to the polls “in droves,” risking right-wing power in the Knesset.
“Rhetoric that seeks to marginalize one segment of their population is deeply concerning and it is divisive, and I can tell you that these are views the administration intends to communicate directly to the Israelis,” Earnest said aboard Air Force One, congratulating the people of Israel for holding the poll.
That’s rich coming from a White House run by a man who pours gasoline on every racial lie he can glom on to, a man who made Al Sharpton his go-to guy and race, a man who once told Hispanics that voting against Republicans is the same thing as “punishing your enemies.”
The most bitter pill for Obama is explained in the one honest post-mortem the mainstream media produced today. Bloomberg’s Eli Lake correctly notes that yesterday’s election in Israel was a humiliating referendum against Barack Obama and for his nemesis, Bibi Netanyahu:
The experts who said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was vulnerable before yesterday’s national election insisted that the vote was a referendum on him. His overwhelming victory shows that it was equally a referendum on U.S. President Barack Obama. Netanyahu gave voters a choice between whom to trust more with their nation’s security. The result was clear. …
Netanyahu’s political instincts were correct. In re-electing him, a large plurality of Israelis agreed that Obama is not to be trusted. The question now for Obama is whether he thinks Netanyahu was bluffing or telling the truth in his pre-election interview. I suppose it all comes down to a matter of trust.
In short, Obama is pouting. He’s always happy to congratulate the world’s bad guys, but it’s Netanyahu he sees as the real bad guy. And this “bad guy” just cleaned Obama’s clock in front of the whole wide world.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC