Now the political pundits will peck at every crumb that falls from George Bush's mouth, as if he is the one who decides, and not the global and regional reality that decides for him. "Bold ideas," said the president. "Positive ideas," he added for good measure.

I studied at a university in New York for two years before it dawned on me that when people said my remarks were "very interesting," it meant I was laying it on a little too thick. It took a while, but eventually it sank in.

Olmert passed the White House test with flying colors, no question about it. The famous chemistry seems to have been established. And why wouldn't it? Even before he flew off to Washington for this "get-acquainted meeting," as it was called, he gave an interview to The New York Times. "I wake up every morning and say to myself: 'Thank God for America, thank God for George W. Bush, thank God for Condi Rice, the most decent people I can talk with and take counsel with, and get advice and support from,' " he told Steven Erlanger.

Even the correspondent himself was a little uncomfortable with such fulsome praise. It's been so long since America's leaders have heard anything like it. Olmert's remarks were a little over the top, said Erlanger, a little too thick. It's a matter of taste, of course. Olmert must have figured that a bit of flattery never did anyone any harm.

"Condi" instead of "Condoleezza"? That's a way of marking territory with a familiar body odor. It wouldn't have taken much to turn Bush into "Bushy." Such slobbering hasn't been seen in these parts since we stopped licking stamps and envelopes. Happy is the man who gets up every the morning with such prayers of thanks to the good Lord. In the entire universe, I bet there are only handful who feel the way Olmert does.

Massacred Iraqi citizens are not thanking the Lord or praising Bush. American soldiers are not grateful to God and their president. Neither are their families. The genocide victims in Darfur don't wake up in the mornings sighing with happiness and contentment. The thanks of global terror victims, hoping to be rescued from the rising storm, have been cut off in mid-sentence. The torture victims of the CIA in dungeons around the world curse the day they were born and the person who darkened their lives. Those who have been poisoned by pollution and greenhouse emissions pour out their bitterness on the man who has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Refugees of the hurricane in New Orleans, who observe their city from afar and have yet to return, will never forget, or forgive, the damage inflicted by nature and the Bush administration.

Most importantly, 71 percent of American citizens do not share our prime minister's Israeli good cheer. They are sick and tired of their president, they don't trust his judgment and they don't have the same faith in his integrity and good sense that Olmert has. The Americans, the Europeans, the Africans, the denizens of the Middle East, the Russians, the Chinese - none of them want to be pals with this president. None of them want his jinxed blessing. Even the Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives are on guard, and keeping their distance as they campaign for election in November.

An interesting question is why Israeli leaders are the ones who feel so at home in the White House. It must be true what they say about birds of a feather flocking together.