President Barack Obama and his minions in the White House and the press have had a lot to say about how ‘disrespectful’ it was for Congress to invite Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of congress without informing the White House. And how wrong it was for Netanyahu to accept when he knew the White House hadn’t been informed.

Read this correction , from The New York Time’s own website.

Correction: January 30, 2015

An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.

Omri Ceren first spotted the correction and explained on Twitter:

NYT tries to promote anti-Netanyahu talking point that #Israel blindsided Obama. They got just 1 tiny detail wrong. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/us/politics/benjamin-netanyahu-is-talking-to-harry-reid-and-leading-democrats-to-little-effect-so-far.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=2 Correction: January 30, 2015 An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.

This correction literally destroys the entire accompanying NYT article, about how Netanyahu was trying to make peace with Democrats in congress and explain why he had cooperated in ‘bypassing the White House.’

Let’s look at what originally ran, in the print edition:



Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Thursday that Mr. Netanyahu had called him the previous afternoon to explain why he had accepted an invitation to speak to Congress without first notifying the White House.

Then it was revised in the online edition:

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Thursday that Mr. Netanyahu had called him the previous afternoon to explain why the White House had been circumvented before he was invited to speak before Congress.

And let’s look again the correction at the bottom of this piece of journalistic chicanery, online:

An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.

Of course, the truth is that the White House was never bypassed or circumvented. Netanyahu only accepted Speaker John Boehner’s invitation after he knew the White House had been informed and had a chance to object.

And if the Obama White House had some objection and had actually communicated it to Netanyahu, do you think that just maybe, he might have made decision not to accept the speaking invitation?

Instead, the Obama White House said nothing, and Netanyahu, whose country gets threatened with destruction by Iran about every other week decided to accept Boehner’s invitation to speak to congress and help provide an impetus for legislation on Iranian sanctions that’s in both Israel and America’s interest .

American Thinker (where yours truly has been proud to appear from time to time) blogged on this and revealed another tidbit :

In 2011, Boehner sent a notice to the WH stating his intention to invite Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress. The White House never responded (spite? incompetence?) and Boehner proceeded to extend the invitation to Netanyahu. Netanyahu accepted the invitation and spoke. The White House did not express any outrage in 2011.

So there was a precedent set then, and no reason for Boehner or Netanyahu to assume there was any problem when the White House didn’t respond with any objections this time.

The resulting fracas was simply kabuki outrage manufactured to create a negative impression that Israel had somehow ‘disrespected’ an American president. And of course, to assist Netanyahu’s political enemies in the coming election…where the Obama Administration has already sent a crack campaign team and millions in campaign funds for the same purpose. The shotgun wedding of Labor’s Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni lost no time in trying to spin this to show that ‘Netanyahu was destroying Israel’s relationship with the U.S.’

Actually, the reality is that it really doesn’t matter what Netanyahu says or what Israel does.If it wasn’t this, President Obama would have set up something else, and there will certainly be more of this coming no matter who gets elected in March and no matter how many of Mahmoud Abbas’s demands Israel submits to.

This president wants very much to curtail America’s alliance with Israel. That’s the goal, and it has been ever since President Barack Hussein Obama first entered the White House.