If you were a member of Congress, would you attend Netanyahu's speech?

[angus]

Definitely.  It's like asking if Ho Chi Minh or Robert Mugabe were coming to make speeches, in their respective epochs.  How could miss that?  In all seriousness, I think that if you're a member of the US congress, you should make it your business to listen to all speeches from all potentially influential people in the world.  I wouldn't hold it against my congressmember if he didn't make it, but I'd not miss it for the world.  I would consider it part of my education as a statesman to observe, first hand, the substance of what Netanyahu is putting out there for public consumption.  

[angus]

It's a curious double dubious interference isn't it? Bibi getting involved in the American political process, and the Congressional Republicans getting involved in the Israeli election.

It is intriguing, but I suspect you'd attend as well.  You're such a junkie for this stuff.

[angus]

I'm uncomfortable missing work, so I guess I'd go.

Yeah, this.

It would be super easy then to hit CNN, MSNBC or C-SPAN and denounce the speech completely and call Netanyahu a dangerous neo-con (which he is).

I have to ask, is the term "neo-con" applicable in any sense to a non-American politician?

Yes, in the sense that a former left winger turns conservative (often provoked by a single issue - in Europe typically Islam) and then adjust other positions to become a more coherent Conservative, while being more hawkish on defence, foreing policy and immigration than most tradtional Conservatives.

Using it for Netanyahu makes no sense. He is a generic right winger, not a neo-con.

All true, but in the US the term is also slang for any Republican Jew.  Keep that in mind.

[angus]

plenty of neocons are evangelical christians or Atheists also.

My statement neither contradicts this observation nor attempts to subsume it.