Clearly, President Obama blew his famous cool when Israel announced new apartments in East Jerusalem during a visit by Vice President Biden last week. The U.S. response -- White House advisor David Axelrod called Israel's move an "affront"� and an "insult"� -- included some of the harshest official language in recent memory toward a country with which the United States was not actually at war.

However, I'm not sure Israel's gesture, provocative though it may have been, was even the most offensive thing a foreign government did or said with regard to the Obama administration in the last week. In Beijing Sunday, China's premier, Wen Jiabao, launched an anti-U.S. tirade that made the president's objective of economic harmony with Beijing seem even more...