Bush's Brain... Bibi's Brain... a real No-Brainer.*

In a fawning article that fails to answer honest questions (how did first wife Adi Blumberg die at 29?), this fellow Ron Dermer appears to be a roaring success.

He co-wrote the book, in fact, that President George W. Bush relied upon as his bible in spreading democracy, peace and love in the Middle East. (America got the bills, but not the product promised.)

I wonder if Israel's methods will prove as successful in the long run?

WASHINGTON — As an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, Ron Dermer reluctantly accepted an assignment to argue that Israel should be condemned for its treatment of Palestinians.

“You’ll do it or I’ll flunk you,” his professor, the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, recalled telling Mr. Dermer, the quick-witted son of a prominent Miami Beach family. Mr. Dermer, barrel-chested and unrelenting, turned in such a passionate performance that Mr. Luntz declared him the debate’s victor. Mr. Dermer celebrated with a call to his Israeli-born mother.

“How did you do it?” Yaffa Dermer recalled asking incredulously.

“I lied,” Mr. Dermer said. “Like they do.”

Horowitz sprinkles in some humor with his obvious admiration of ... "the barrel-chested" politician.

It was Mr. Dermer who helped arrange a meeting between Mr. Netanyahu and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York after Mr. Bloomberg pushed the case that the Tel Aviv airport was safe by taking what was, for him, a rare commercial flight.

“I told him, ‘There’s no limit to the sacrifices you are willing to make for the Jewish people,’ ” Mr. Dermer said.

Lol. Horowitz too, has an obvious affection for ZBT's, who were considered a decent academic frat at Northwestern, but not really all that and a bag of chips. Horowitz, however, assumes otherwise:

As Mr. Bloomberg spoke on an Israeli television station playing behind him, Mr. Dermer leaned back, exhibiting the self-assurance common to former residents of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity houses — he accepted the fraternity’s Man of the Year award that evening — and the competitive streak of a Hall of Fame Israeli flag football quarterback.

You wonder if his academic skills were as rich as his financial opportunism, and if the ZBT test files, and the earlier mentioned penchant for lying, perhaps led to his outstanding student record:

He applied only to the University of Pennsylvania for its top Wharton business school and started a multicollege business selling “exam buster” study aides with answers to previous tests. Then he enrolled in a political class taught by Mr. Luntz.

It sounds like his first marriage ended in tragedy; suicide perhaps? Mr. Horowitz never provides the simple facts:

In 1995, Mr. Dermer worked in Israel with the Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky — Mr. Luntz was the connection — to establish a new immigrant party. In 1997, he began the process of becoming an Israeli immigrant himself, and the next year he married Adi Blumberg, an artist and daughter of the chairman of the Bank of Jerusalem.

Mr. Dermer declined to talk about Ms. Blumberg, who died less than two years after their wedding, but in his eulogy he said, “For those few who understood her — and there were indeed very few who did — the magic of her presence will never fade.”

Then, there's the book...

In 2004, Mr. Dermer and Mr. Sharansky published a book, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror,” which captivated President George W. Bush and helped shape his foreign policy.

You'd think his career in Washington would be effectively over; his track record of results is disastrous. Nope, ambition exceeds rational thought, and the barrel-chested man -- whom Horowitz so ably builds up here, continues on amassing accolades as the costs and destruction add up.

Something tells me, like Bloomberg flying commercial, this guy rarely pays his own bills or even reviews the receipts; he's continually covered by others as he advances along, lucky soul...
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* He reminds me of the mid-40s version of American charlatan Paul Ryan.  They appear to fit the parts, so people don't look closely at their work product.  Image is everything, and somebody has decided that for these times -- these are the men demographically selected right now to play the role of "leaders".

The only blessing is to look ahead, and remember how quickly the 1950s passed into the turbulent 60's and 70's, and what a game-changer that was in terms of shared power, and the decline of politically connected power elites. Demographics matter.

So beat those barrel chests while you can, big boys; in time, with further questioning, honest people will come to realize just how hollow these accomplishments are...

(ADDED:  Mr. Dermer ought to go with a darker shade of lipstick as well.  The light-lipped look is fine if you're wearing sunscreen on the beach, but it's the wrong color for him in his many media appearances.  Looks too artificial.)