Former Secretary of State James Baker said today on CNN that when he was in office during the George H. W. Bush administration, he barred Benjamin Netanyahu from the State Department for saying US Middle East policy was “based on lies and distortions.”

Baker said that Netanyahu - then a senior Israeli official on foreign policy - had said that “American policy in the Middle East is based on lies and distortions” during the George H.W. Bush administration.

“I barred him from the State Department,” Baker said. “That may not be widely known.”

Imagine the wingnut reaction if John F. Kerry did something like this.