My imported sports car has hands-free cell phone service, but just to be safe, I always pull off and park at the first opportunity after taking a call. And that’s exactly what I did, driving along the George Washington Memorial Parkway to my home in Great Falls, Virginia on Friday night after work. Caller ID was blocked, so I had no idea who it was as I drove into the scenic overlook at the top of the hill after the turnoff to Spout Run. Not that I ever let something like that keep me from picking up on a phone call.
Tom: Hello, who’s this?
Voice: Tom Collins?
Tom: This is he.
Voice: I need some advice about a problem and I’ve been told you’re… one of the best.
Tom: You sound very familiar. Have we met before? Are you by any chance…
Voice: Call me Pat.
Tom: Okay… Pat. How did you get my cell phone number?
Pat: From a colleague, who wishes to remain anonymous.
Tom: You know, Pat, you sound exactly like one of my clients, who is a highly placed official in the Obama administration. The last time we met, as I recall…
Pat: No, no, that’s not me. I’ve never been to your office.
Tom: You’re sure?
Pat: Yeah, of course – absolutely sure. Maybe the person you’re thinking of is the one who gave me your cell phone number. Not that there aren’t plenty of people in Washington with your telephone numbers in their Contacts folders.
Tom: Nice to know. So what’s the nature of your problem?
Pat: If you can help me out on this, I’ll make sure you get plenty of business, I guarantee it.
Tom: Thanks, Pat, that would be appreciated, naturally. How can I help?
Pat: I spoke, on deep background, to a journalist.
Tom: Performing strategic leaking services for the administration?
Pat: Not leaks, exactly, just using an alternate channel to get our message out.
Tom: And which message would that be?
Pat: Well, in this particular case, the message was that the Obama administration is highly displeased with the actions, attitudes and policies of the current Israeli government.
Tom: And to which journalist were you delivering this message on deep background?
Pat: Jeffrey Goldberg.
Tom: The Jeffrey Goldberg who writes for the The Atlantic magazine?
Pat: Yeah. Maybe you’ve heard what…
Tom: Sure. Everybody in Washington DC west of Rock Creek, south of P Street or on the Capitol Hill side of the Anacostia River has heard about it. You referred to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, as the cloacal litter of the species Gallus gallus domesticus.
Pat: Uh… okay… if you say so. How did you know that is what I am calling about and it was me?
Tom: Because members of the Obama administration have referred to Prime Minister Netanyahu in negative ways before. Are you the one who called him “pompous?”
Pat: Um… I don’t remember. I may have, I guess.
Tom: Are you the one who called him “cowardly,” “bullying,” “loud mouth,” “Napoleonic,” “gutless,” “obtuse,” “myopic,” “recalcitrant,” or “blustering?”
Pat: Perhaps a couple of those. A lot of folks in the Obama administration have called him various things. I think I called him “gutless” in that interview with Goldberg, actually.
Tom: You have not, by any chance, also called him “Aspergery,” at any time, have you?
Pat: No, I don’t think so… or at least I don’t recall doing so.
Tom: That’s good, because I think whoever did should apologize to the Asperger’s Syndrome community for comparing people with high functioning autism to Benjamin Netanyahu.
Pat: Uh… I suppose they should.
Tom: Tell me, has anyone in the Obama administration ever called Benjamin Netanyahu an idiot, an imbecile, a half-wit, a moron, an inept cretin, a craven ignoramus, a blundering oaf, a farcical dolt, a clueless buffoon, a ludicrous pinhead, a pathetic lamebrain, or a stupid, vacuous, feebleminded fool?
Pat: Not in public.
Tom: Has anyone in the Obama administration ever called Benjamin Netanyahu an amoral, sociopathic, lying, thieving, sadistic, bloodthirsty, bigoted, murdering Zionist monster?
Pat: Frankly, nobody in the Obama administration has the… uh… sand... to say anything like that about him. We leave that kind of talk to our European allies.
Tom: As well you should. So what was it that drove you over the line? What provoked you so much, you had to declare your opinion that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is nothing but a reeking, rancid, rotten, stinking, steaming, fetid pile of chicken droppings? Was it his announcement that Israel will build over six hundred new Jewish homes in Ramat Shlomo, and four hundred in Har Homa, both of which are located beyond the Green Line?
Pat: No, not that, exactly. I mean, it got me rather upset, I can tell you that. But truth be told, it got most of the UN Security Council rather upset, too.
Tom: Was it when he said, “The vast majority of Jerusalem’s residents, more than 300,000 people, live in these neighborhoods – in Gilo, Ramot, Pisgat Ze’ev, Har Homa. Does someone think they will not live there under a peace agreement?”
Pat: I have to admit, that certainly jerked my chain pretty hard, but no, it wasn’t that. That remark only prompted me to say that he has a near-pathological desire for career preservation.
Tom: Which, considering that he’s a politician, is pretty much par for the course, in fact.
Pat: Well, I wouldn’t say Jimmy Carter, for example, had that particular problem, but okay, yeah, a lot of politicians are like that.
Tom: Like Barack Obama, for instance.
Pat: No comment.
Tom: Okay, so was it when Netanyahu let the whole world know how little respect he has for the Obama administration by saying that anyone who disagrees with his settlement policies is “disconnected from reality?”
Pat: Well, I have to admit, that really burned my onion, but no.
Tom: So, was it when he said Israel has “written off the Obama administration” as irrelevant?
Pat: Yeah – that was it.
Tom: How come?
Pat: Because the United States of America is the world’s last and most mighty military and diplomatic superpower, and the greatest economic and technological titan that’s ever existed, that’s why. Leaders of itty-bitty little countries that don’t have squat for GDP and depend on handouts from us to keep the lights on don’t go around writing off the President of the United States and his administration! If there’s any writing off to be done, by God, it will be the Obama administration that does it!
Tom: You mean, you’re not comfortable with Israel dragging America around by the nose, dictating whatever it wants done, issuing orders, and siccing the United States on Israel’s adversaries as if the US were nothing more than a large, not particularly intelligent, but absurdly faithful bull mastiff dog?
Pat: I… that is… uh… the Obama administration stands steadfastly alongside the state of Israel, our staunchest ally in the Middle East, as has every America administration since 1948.
Tom: Sure. But when Netanyahu said he had written off the Obama Administration…
Pat: Yes, yes, that’s what did it! I called him chicken-[expletive]! And he is chicken-[expletive], damn it! Chicken-[expletive], chicken-[expletive], chicken-[expletive] Prime chicken-[expletive] Minster chicken-[expletive] Benjamin chicken-[expletive] Netan-chicken-[expletive]-yahu! What do you think?
Tom: I think you should apologize to chickens for comparing their feces to Benjamin Netanyahu. But what’s your problem? Goldberg writes for a big-time journalistic enterprise, The Atlantic, and so presumably he’s going to be a completely professional about this and refuse to reveal the identity his source. His lips are sealed – forever. Journalistic ethics dictate that he should be willing to go to jail for contempt of court for refusing to say who you are, and furthermore, there’s no reason to expect there will be any court to find him in contempt, anyway. It’s not like there are any national security implications to tossing nasty epithets at some bozo like Benjamin Netanyahu. So, okay, maybe you stepped on your boss’s toes with that remark about rooster poop, but with the President’s current popularity polling only about five points ahead of genital herpes, what’s spitting in the ocean?
Pat: It’s got the Jewish Lobby screaming bloody murder!
Tom: That’s just posturing. The Jews here in the US went along with Obama, but they don’t trust him because he’s a schwoogie.
Pat: Schwoogie?
Tom: Yeah, from the Yiddish – “schwartzer” and the American slang, “boogie babies.” Inner-city American Jewish shopkeepers call the button under the counter used to summon the police the “schwoogie buzzer.” You didn’t know that?
Pat: Well, ah… as a liberal Democrat, I was raised in a politically correct environment, and I guess I just never heard that particular term.
Tom: Israelis have other words for them, but they’re no big fans of Africans, either, even if the African in question happens to be President of the United States. And any time that schwoogie in the White House gets out of line with respect to who’s in the driver’s seat – Israel or the United States – you can depend on the Jewish Lobby to scream bloody murder about it and remind everybody that Israel’s the one actually calling the shots – backed by the billions of dollars in political and media influence Jewish Americans exert. It’s just their typical knee-jerk reaction, that’s all. Why should you care?
Pat: Ted Cruz has already written a op-ed for Time and demanded that the administration find out who called Netanyahu chicken-[expletive] and fire them!
Tom: Yeah, but who reads Time anymore? Or takes Ted Cruz seriously, for that matter?
Pat: You mean, you haven’t heard what Josh Earnest said during the White House press briefing about this on Tuesday?
Tom: All right, I missed that – what did he say?
Pat: He said, “Comments like that do not reflect the administration’s view and we do believe that they are counterproductive.”
Tom: Really? He said that? Not good. Definitely not good. Has Goldberg said anything about it?
Pat: Yesterday, he told an Army Radio interviewer that the administration’s response was “a completely normal course of events.”
Tom: Oh, dear.
Pat: Then Goldberg said it’s like this, “Someone tells the truth and then because the truth isn’t diplomatic, they have to say they weren’t authorized to speak it,” or words to that effect.
Tom: I see. So you’re concerned that if you do not come forward and confess to calling Netanyahu a heap of avian dookie, there’s going to be a witch hunt to find the person responsible.
Pat: Yeah, and I could lose my nice job in Washington just for saying out loud what a lot of people here are thinking anyway!
Tom: Well, now, that wouldn’t exactly be the end of the world, would it?
Pat: Tell that to my… uh… tell that to my spouse and my family, Tom. They have some pretty high expectations for me. What can I do?
Tom: If anyone confronts you about referring to Netanyahu in the barnyard vernacular, deny it.
Pat: But what if Goldberg spills the beans?
Tom: Then he can try making a living with his own Web site, because it’s dollars to donuts The Atlantic and every other major news organization will treat him like a leper with Ebola who’s just come down with a case of MERS.
Pat: Yeah, but what if he does anyway? Say the White House sends over a couple of… you know… special federal agents… to… you know…. have a talk with Goldberg and he… you know, just snaps and says it was me?
Tom: Keep on denying it. Claim Goldberg just fingered you because he was afraid of what would happen if he told those… um… special federal agents who it is that really said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is what comes out of the south end of a north-bound chicken.
Pat: But the mid-term elections are only five days away! Here it is Friday…
Tom: Right, and the election is Tuesday. So that means if Obama wants to take care of this, he’s got to fire somebody on Monday. Therefore, the solution to your problem is obvious.
Pat: It is?
Tom: Sure – just find some excuse not to come in on Monday. Say you’ve got Montezuma’s Revenge or salmonella or a twenty-four hour stomach virus or something. I don’t know if you have any children, but they can often provide very convenient excuses to skip work for a day, too, and it’s considered extremely bad manners to delve too deeply into what’s wrong with them.
Pat: Okay, I get it. I’ll try that. But what if they send somebody to my house on Monday to fire me?
Tom: Don’t answer the door. I doubt they’ll bring a SWAT team with a battering ram, and… oh, wait a minute, there’s a US Park Police cruiser pulling up next to my parking spot here at the overlook. Listen, if you do get fired for calling Bibi Netanyahu birdie flop, call me back and I’ll give you some pointers on how to change your name, get plastic surgery, invent a plausible past for yourself, and move to a country that has no extradition treaties with the United States, okay? Oh, hello, officer, I just pulled over here in order to safely engage in a cell phone conversation while in my motor vehicle, and as a matter of fact, I was just about say goodbye to the other party. Goodbye, Pat!
Pat: Huh?