This Is getting Tawdry

++Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly 
rarely comments on Israeli politics but weighs in today and what he first thought was a Boehner ploy to diss President Obama. Instead,it seems it was Bibi's all along.

++Calev Ben-David at Bloomberg politics confirms this. That the whole thing was arranged by the Israeli ambassador to Washington, who asked John Boehner about the possibility of addressing a joint session of Congress. As Ed Kilgore notes that Boehner all but confirmed that the dates had to be arranged so that Bibi could address the AIPAC conference.

++The Labor Party is spitting bullets saying that Bibi is "entering the lion's den" for television time back home. The opposition Meretz Party will file a complaint with the Central Elections Committee demanding it prohibit Israeli Television and Radio from broadcasting the speech. Their spokesperson claims it is "a bilateral violation of campaign laws."

++Labor sees the ploy as creating a late campaign narrative of "Bibi--the Indispensable Man" through coverage of the congressional address and ads produced from that and the AIPAC conference.

++Before this flap, Josh Marshall at Talkingpoints Memo said that polling was so tight that there may be a controversy over whom the President gets to call first to form the governing coalition. Given the relationship between Bibi and President Obama ,it makes all the sense in the world for Obama to stay away from Bibi during this time.

++Meanwhile Ayatollah Khameini has sent a letter to the young in the West not to evaluate Islam through your prejudice but from the original sources. Actually good advice. He also tells the young that you don't have to agree with my interpretation (something I am sure his countrymen might applaud) but use your own minds. Fascinating how this was timed and the tone.