Israeli PM Ehud Olmert claims to be able to order Bush aroundJuan Cole, Informed Comment: Why in the world would Bush over-rule the US Secretary of State, for the sake of Olmert, in the midst of delicate negotiations with European and Arab allies? Here are the only possibilities I can think of:
1. Bush is as dumb as he looks and just agrees with the last person he spoke to.
2. Bush hates it when the roar of cannon dies down, and is a sadist who enjoys prolonging war far too much to ever actively back a ceasefire.
3. Olmert has something over Bush.
I remember that Bush had taken on Sharon in September of 2001, calling for a Palestinian state and ordering Sharon to stop colonizing the West Bank... But by spring of 2002 Bush was bending over backward to please the Likud. What changed? Something did. There is a mystery to be explained here.
AFP: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W. Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday. 'She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour,' Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon...'I said get me President Bush on the phone. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. I need to talk to him now. He got off the podium and spoke to me. I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour.'
