You know John Boehner has really stepped out of line when Fox News criticizes him, and that is exactly what has happened. Boehner side-stepped President Obama and the White House by secretly scheduling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress, which is aimed at undermining President Obama’s policies.
It’s no secret that Netanyahu and the Republicans are not pleased with President Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Iran. By reaching over President Obama, Boehner is allowing a foreign leader to not only use the floor of Congress to bash the standing U.S. President, but also meddle in American foreign policy.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace and Shepherd Smith both harshly criticized John Boehner, with Wallace saying,
“…to make you get a sense of really how, forgive me, wicked, this whole thing is, the Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Israeli Ambassador to the United States for two hours on Tuesday, Ron Dermer. The ambassador, never mentioned the fact that Netanyahu was in negotiations and finally agreed to come to Washington, not to see the president, but to go to Capitol Hill, speak to a joint session of congress and criticize the president’s policy. I have to say I’m shocked.”
Netanyahu is also playing with fire by agreeing to the secret arrangement. The United States is by far Israel’s most important ally, and going behind President Obama’s back is probably not the best idea. While Netanyahu most likely anticipated some backlash, it is unlikely that he expected it to come from Fox News.
Lisa Goldman, the director of the Israel-Palestine Initiative at the New America Foundation, wrote on Facebook in response to the Fox News segment:
“After watching this I think Bibi [Netanyahu] and [Israeli ambassador to the US Ron] Dermer might have finally gone too far…They miscalculated the American Zeitgeist and didn’t realize that when a foreign power, even a favorite ally, shows a lack of respect for US institutions, a red line has been crossed.”
Indeed, the fact that Fox News has taken offense to something? their “golden boy” (or should it be “orange boy”?) John Boehner has done speaks volumes. Boehner and Netanyahu crossed the line with this arrangement, and partisan politics aside, such disrespect to an American President should not be tolerated.
