Jews occupy a peculiar position in the Democratic Party: The Jewish vote is part of the Democratic base, but at the same time the party does not represent Jewish interests, either at home or abroad, and of the last three Democratic presidents, two were nakedly hostile to the Jewish state. Now the second of them is running for reelection and is counting on the Jewish vote.

After November 6th, 2012, Barack Obama will either be a leader with absolute control over foreign policy and nothing to lose or the first Democratic incumbent since Carter to lose the White House. For Obama everything hinges on securing the next four years and that requires him to play up his pro-Israel credentials while trying to convince Jewish voters that the animosity and ugliness of his present term never happened.

But there are two things dragging him down: The Center for American Progress and Media Matters.

Jewish discomfort with the administration has been growing for some time now. While Obama’s growing loss of Jewish support cannot only be put down to Israel, the Jewish state has become shorthand for the administration’s attitude toward the Jewish community. Vocal condemnations by former New York mayor Ed Koch and now by prominent civil rights attorney Alan Dershowitz make it clear that even mainstream Democrats are aware of the problem and that it is not going away.

While Koch’s remarks have been fairly vague, Dershowitz has been much more direct about identifying and attacking the root of the problem. “Media Matters and Center for American Progress are two extremely left-bigoted groups that are so virulently anti-Israel and anti-supporters of Israel that they’ve gone over the line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism,” Dershowitz recently affirmed.

Read more: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/22/obama%e2%80%99s-anti-semitic-anchors/