Um, Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?

Mark Landler, NY Times:

In an unusually public rebuke, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been forced to abstain from a United Nations resolution on Gaza that she helped draft, after Mr. Olmert placed a phone call to President Bush.

“I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone,’ ” Mr. Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, according to The Associated Press. “They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care: ‘I need to talk to him now,’ ” Mr. Olmert continued. “He got off the podium and spoke to me.”

Putting aside the merits or flaws of the UN resolution — how is it the Prime Minister of Israel issues orders to the U.S. Secretary of State? And when did Israel put a dog leash on the POTUS? What happened to “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people“?

Unrelated: Don’t miss the Big Buddhas.