Tickets for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech n Congress today would be selling on the black market for hundreds if not thousands of dollars if Congressmen could sell their allotment of one ticket to friends and constituents.
“If I had 100 tickets, I’d be the most popular guy in town,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, told The New York Times.
The ear-piercing crescendo from the Obama administration and anti-Netanyahu bleachers in Israel has had a “Purim” effect by achieving results exactly opposite from their intentions.
Netanyahu stood his ground against demands from his political and media opponents in Israel to cancel the speech, which now has become talk of Washington, if not the entire United States.
“They have made it the most talked about thing in Washington, and I think it blew up in their face,” said Sen. Graham to the Times. “Everything he says, people want to hear, and people want to be in that room to listen, they want to be in person. It’s become a historic speech.”
The tickets are hotter than fresh latkes,” said Democratic Sen. Charles E. Schumer, who perhaps should have used the more timely analogy of “Hamantashen.”
“If Taylor Swift and Katy Perry did a joint concert at Madison Square Garden wearing white-and-gold and black-and-blue dresses, accompanied by dancing sharks and llamas, that’s the only way you’d have a tougher ticket,” Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner, told the newspaper.
That may be one of the reasons Obama is so angry over Netanyahu’s appearance.
The Jewish Press reported here yesterday that Americans have a highly favorable view of Netanyahu, even more than Obama.
The New York Times quoted New York Congressman Lee Zeldin as saying, “No one asked to be my guest” at the president’s State of the Union address.”
Approximately 30 Democrats are expressing their loyalty to Obama by planning to boycott the speech.
Their absence will not be noticed.