Do you remember the scene when Ehud Barak (now defense minister) leaped onto the stage and grabbed the microphone from Moshe Shahal? Do you remember the wording of the laconic official letter Barak sent Labor MK Eitan Cabel: "I've erred, I've learned and I'm running?" Do you remember the interviews in which he said that he had learned the lessons of his mistakes and that he has changed? Has he? Not really all that much. Except perhaps for the prolonged absence from political life and the significant improvement in the standard of his private life. But the most outstanding change is in the method of maintaining a modest demeanor he employed when he returned to his post as defense minister, which was manifested mainly in his prolonged and surprising silence. The justification he gave was being deeply absorbed in rehabilitating the army after the Second Lebanon War.

The important part of this silence that hasn't really been explained was interpreted by journalists as patient waiting for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's possible fall after the final Winograd Committee report, which would open Barak's way to becoming prime minister in a coalition with Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu.

Until such time as this miracle happens - and not many people are convinced that it will - Barak has been scrupulously depicting Olmert as a gifted and thoughtful politician. However, in actuality, a working relationship based on mutual esteem has not developed between them. Olmert has not really brought Barak into his innermost decision-making circle. He did not consult him prior to his visits to Washington and Jericho. And, of course, he did not ask the defense minister to join him. Barak is familiar with this "invention" of the indirect personal insult from the days when as prime minister he refused to take Yossi Sarid with him to Camp David on the grounds that there wasn't a bed for him.