By Edward-Isaac Dovere 2/6/15

Joe Biden won’t be there to welcome Benjamin Netanyahu to a joint meeting of Congress — or even shake his hand.

The vice president will miss only his second address by a foreign leader to a joint meeting of Congress next month, when he’ll be out of the country while Netanyahu makes what’s become an increasingly controversial speech warning against the Iran nuclear deal.
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The vice president’s office on Friday confirmed the plans to skip the March 3 speech.

“We are not ready to announce details of his trip yet, and normally our office wouldn’t announce this early, but the planning process has been underway for a while,” a spokesperson for the office said.

Biden’s absence heads off some awkwardness — the White House deeply opposes the politics of this speech, as well as the allegedly violated protocol, so not having the vice president sit behind Netanyahu avoids what could be taken as a symbolic show of support. His facial expressions won’t be parsed, nor will anyone be counting which lines he applauds, and for how long.

But it creates a whole new level of questions surrounding a speech that dozens of Democrats already are threatening to boycott, especially with the already icy relations between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama now completely frozen over, and Netanyahu’s Likud Party leading in the polls ahead of Israel’s March 17 elections.

It’s not clear where Biden will be — or whether the travel plans could have been rearranged if the vice president had wanted to. Obama already has ruled out a meeting with Netanyahu during the visit, and the State Department says no meetings are planned between the prime minister and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Asked whether any consideration had been given to rescheduling Biden’s trip, the vice president’s spokesperson stressed again that the planning had long been underway. The White House said Obama did not ask Biden to adjust his travel so he could attend.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/jo...l#ixzz3R1Fw3VJ7