Tel Aviv’s biggest boobs?

Barely a day after Haaretz runs a timely column on the end of journalism, YA goes to town with a report that at a recent meeting between Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro and one more, Shapiro “grew enraged by Netanyahu’s remarks, broke diplomatic protocol, and snapped at the PM, saying he was misrepresenting Obama’s position on Iran.” Well, should anybody be surprised?

 This diplomatic dustup comes on the heels of Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. armed forces, saying he does not wish to be “complicit” in a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran.>The choice of the word “complicit” in connection with an ally is strange. “Complicit” carries the suggestion that one’s interlocutor is more on the level of being an enemy than an ally.  The terminology is acceptable, yes; but kosher, not so much.

Of greater concern is theYedioth Ahronoth report particularly if it is true, and presently no reports have emerged to contradict it. Namely, did Shapiro really “snap” at the Prime Minister of Israel? If he did, well, it’s acceptable that sparks will fly in an argument of course, and maybe it’s even healthy, but wouldn’t that on some level make the Ambassador a bit of a boob?

Many would agree. But then how can you expect an uninterrupted supply of equanimity and poise from a political neophyte? I expect that Obama will lose his trademark cool in one of the upcoming debates with the Romney,  but so far so good. As for Shapiro, too young to have the gravitas of a heavyweight like the late great Hermann Eilts, onetime ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but not too young to be called a Chicagoland crony of Obama. A graduate of Harvard, considered by many to be the ultimate East Coast bastion of the self-hating Jew.

Maybe the alleged feistiness was in the stars — Nancy Reagan, where are you? As the former First Lady would doubtless concur, you don’t put a Libra (that’s Bibi) in the same room as a Gemini (our man on Hayarkon St.) and expect wedding bells. You’ve got chronic vacillation and craving for approval on the one hand, and, well — everyone knows that no one knows how to spoil a party like a moody Gemini.

There are plenty of boobs at Foggy Bottom and its various outposts around the globe these days. I like Hillary Clinton, she’s our Merkel  and it’s hard to not respect her work deeply, although some sources, notably The Wall Street Journal, claim that her work as Secretary of State is largely boob-like in terms of what it has actually accomplished.

But that’s not really her fault. Nor is Shapiro’s apparent closed-door mini-meltdown really his fault either, despite his being a Gemini which again, hello Nancy, Ronald and the King of Pop on the White House lawn, is really two people in one. You’re appointed to do a job by the President of the United States, you do what he tells you to do and you stand by him. Or you quit.

And if the President is a foreign policy Pollyanna, here’s what you get: diplomatic faux-pas out the wazoo, from Inauguration Day until — hey, when’s that first debate?