OK, so I’ve been AWOL from this site for a while: It’s because I packed up and left L.A. to take a primo job offer at the Rocky Mountain News, just in time for the DNC (where, yes, I protest crashed and caught a nice whiff of pepper spray). And last week’s Kadima elections — plus rumors of a power-sharing deal being brokered between Labor and Likud with the cooperation of Shas — provided perfect material for my Rocky column yesterday. I really think that Kadima is *this close* to getting the rug pulled out from under it.
“…This week’s election of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as party chairwoman in the face of scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation is no remedy for Kadima. Then again, the election of hawkish Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz – who lost to Livni by a mere one percent, then resigned from politics – would not have coalesced the centrists as the party’s founders envisioned. If anything, the close race showed the deep divisions in the ruling party – Livni, Israeli media reported, had threatened to quit if Mofaz had won.
It also indicated that Bibi is still hot on their heels.
Benjamin Netanyahu – eager to reassume the premiership – said Wednesday that a Kadima partnership was out of the question, as if anyone ever thought it was an option. ‘Asking me to join the government is like asking me to join the management of Lehman Brothers. It’s collapsed, and so has the government,’ he said. ‘Kadima has brought us the collapse of security, education, and the economy.’
What, exactly, has Kadima leadership brought Israel? Security-wise, a mess. …”
