Close to the President?

Jeffrey Goldberg Mar 18 2010, 8:42 AM ET

The Jerusalem Post "reports" on my blog post that suggested the Obama Administration would like to see Tzipi Livni come into Bib's coalition:

In a column in The Atlantic magazine titled "What Obama is Actually Trying to Do in Israel," Goldberg, who is close to Obama, said the president wanted to cause a rupture in Netanyahu's coalition that would necessitate bringing in Kadima. He said he spoke about the matter with officials in the White House.

Now, I wouldn't say that the President and I are close; I mean, we're in the same morning minyan, and we celebrate Shemini Atzeret together (he's always by Rahm for Tu b'Shvat); and we're on the same curling team; and we're both contributing editors at Tablet Magazine; and he attends most Atlantic editorial meetings (more than I attend, actually) and we wrote a Hannukah song together (no, wait, that was someone else); and we're in same Philip Roth book club; and obviously we were both born in Kenya. But other than that, we're not really close.

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Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, Goldberg also writes the magazine's advice column. More

Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent, and the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. Previously, he served as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He has also written for the Jewish Daily Forward, and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

His book Prisoners was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Progressive, Washingtonian magazine, and Playboy. Goldberg rthe recipient of the 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism. He is also the winner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist; the Overseas Press Club award for best human-rights reporting; and the Abraham Cahan Prize in Journalism. He is also the recipient of 2005's Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize.

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation, and in 2002 he became a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.