Six Days Left

There are six days until we get a new President (unless you count Inauguration Day, in which case there are seven). It can't come soon enough, so let's call it six, like the countdown clock above.

Different people had different reactions to Bush's "farewell" press conference yesterday. Some felt sorry for him, like some tragic figure. To me it was just more of the same.

I know we've come to expect him and his administration to be dysfunctional, but this just left me slack-jawed:

WASHINGTON — 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.”

Israel opposed the resolution, which called for a halt to the fighting in Gaza, because the government said it did not provide for Israel’s security. It passed 14 to 0, with the United States abstaining.

Mr. Olmert claimed that once he made his case to Mr. Bush, the president called Ms. Rice and told her to abstain. “She was left pretty embarrassed,” Mr. Olmert said, according to The A.P.

The State Department disputed Mr. Olmert’s account. “Her recommendation was to abstain; that was her recommendation all along,” said an official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the matter.

After the vote, Ms. Rice said the United States “fully supports” the resolution, which called for “an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza,” but opted to abstain to see the outcome of an Egyptian-French peace initiative.

Ms. Rice did not respond to Mr. Olmert’s remarks, which were unusual even in the context of the secretary’s occasionally bumpy relationship with the prime minister, according to the official.

Privately, Mr. Olmert has said Ms. Rice sometimes had to be reined in for getting ahead of the president on policy. “They have a good relationship, but there have been some ups and downs,” the State Department official said.

Leave aside the question of whether Rice's resolution was the right thing to do at this time. The fact that Olmert is bragging about this in public shows an incredible lack of respect not only for Rice, but for Bush and, by extension, the American people who have supported his country. He has done Israel no favor.

Update: Another version of the story is here.

Six more days.

Update: My one and only Facebook friend, Steve Clemons (who has met Condi), feels even stronger about it. This was a monumental blunder on Olmert's part.

Update: Meanwhile, in Chicago, idiots take to vandalism. I loved the response of the rabbi of Young Israel Congregation in West Rogers Park:

Rabbi Elisha Prero said synagogue officials believe the "Jewish response" to the defacement of their building was to make something positive of it. They would use the bricks thrown into the window in the cornerstone of the synagogue's library.

Perfect.

Update: From Juan Cole:

Why did Olmert spill the beans on his backroom maneuvering against Rice? It is a very damaging thing that he said. As Daniel Levy, who had been a Labor Party adviser on peace negotiations, told The Los Angeles Times's Paul Richter:

' This is terrible for the United States . . . This confirms every assumption they have in the Arab world about the tail wagging the dog. . . . It's a story you're likely to hear quoted there for years to come." Levy also accused Olmert of "unparalleled arrogance.". . ."There are some things you don't say, even in Ashkelon, even in Hebrew . . . "