THE OLD WORN CHANNEL OF POLITICS.

This Netanyahu thing reminds me in some ways of the visit Hungarian freedom fighter Louis Kossuth made to the States in 1851, as described by Francis Brown in his biography of New York Times founder Henry Raymond, Raymond of the Times. As Brown has it, Millard Fillmore and the conservative Whigs didn't want Kossuth to have too prominent a reception, on grounds that "public concern with what was held to be solely a European matter endangered American neutrality and held the threat of war," and abstained from welcoming him to Washington. But the proto-Republican Senator William Seward and Raymond "saw political significance in [Kossuth's] visit" and whooped him up when he came to New York, which effort did not go unresisted:

The city's bells peeled, and cannon boomed from Governor's Island, Bedloe's Island, the Navy Yard, and Brooklyn Heights. He came ashore at Castle Garden -- the Battery's trees were black with cheering boys... 

 At the Irving House more than 400 prominent New Yorkers and distinguished guests gather for the municipal dinner for Kossuth. In the banqueting hall, where evergreens masked the salon's columns and the Stars and Stripes was linked with the Hungarian Tricolor, the dinner moves slowly through its many courses and the wine was passed and repassed. The evening's guest of honor spoke for more than an hour. Toasts followed. That to the press belonged to Raymond, and as he prepared to respond, his figure dwarfed in the gay assemblage, [New York Courier and Enquirer editor] James Watson Webb challenged his right to speak. Cries of "Raymond!" "Webb!" echoed through the banquet hall, and when quiet was momentarily restored, Raymond tried to explain that he was only performing a duty assigned to him. Webb once more challenged his right. There were cheers, hisses, and boos, and as confusion mounted, the police were called...

So not everyone liked that idea, either. Also, Kossuth had a unfortunate taste for meddling in American affairs, just like Netanyahu. And, Brown reports from a contemporary account, "on this excitement the Times gained laurels and subscribers, and the Hungarians dollars and sympathy..." which analogizes nicely with the hopes of many rightwing Bibi's Boys who've been trying for years to get Jewish-Americans to love the GOP.

There are some major differences between the 1851 contretemps and this, though. For one, the White House eventually relented and received Kossuth, Congress invited him to be the first foreigner since Lafayette to address a joint session, and even Daniel Webster was inveigled to a Kossuth dinner where he "offered somewhat indiscreetly a toast to Hungarian independence that made Kossuth momentarily happy." ("The Hungarian question has settled down into the old worn channel of politics," Seward observed.) For another, Kossuth was according to Brown widely popular in America as "a symbol of European liberty"; Netanyahu, not so much. 

Also, there is no record of Seward or other Kossuth admirers like Abraham Lincoln crying aloud that Kossuth was their true leader, not this so-called President of the United States, as so many conservative nuts have been doing lately. (Quin Hillyer's ravings at National Review -- e.g., "Netanyahu — who spent far more of his formative years on the American mainland than Obama did, and who took enemy fire at the age when Obama was openly pushing Marxist theory..." -- are perhaps their ripest expression, though as we get closer to speech time maybe some of them will compose and perform a "Bibi for President" anthem.)

Finally, one may say that the Young America adherents who were hot for Kossuth and other European revolutionaries had at least the advantage of idealism on their side, not to mention fewer American historical examples to show them how badly these enthusiasms can turn out.

UPDATE. Well, that was bizarre. Say, how about we invite Iceland president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson to Congress to tell us how we should handle our rogue bankers? (I admit the analogy with Netanyahu isn't perfect, as Iceland is not trying to muscle anything out of us.)