Richard Grenell was Mitt Romney’s foreign policy until last month, when he was pushed out of his job for being openly gay, which is to Romney and co’s shame. For all intents and purposes Grenell’s a brilliant fellow. (and he’s a KSG grad).

I had a brief exchange with Grenell on Twitter last night which was an eye-opener on the way US politicians – and their speechwriters – think: Israel MUST be included, even if it’s irrelevant.
Grenell was upset because US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice (whom, btw, I dislike to no end) was giving a commencement speech to graduating students at Ohio State U.
And, to Mr. Grenell’s outrage, she dared not to mention Israel. In a graduation speech that should be all about inspiration and what not.

@eldahshan nope. but the US Ambassador to the UN talking climate change and not mentioning Israel in a foreign affairs speech is disturbing.

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) June 11, 2012

“Disturbing”. We had a brief exchange and he failed to tell me why it was disturbing that Israel wasn’t mentioned. (as I later asked him what was wrong about talking about climate change, he said ‘nothing’.)

For US politicians, the imperative of shoving Israel whenever and wherever is possible trumps logic. And this comes from the man who formulated the foreign policy positions of the country’s top Republican politician.
I’m amazed.
In Egypt, we’d say حافظ مش فاهم…