When left-wingers take to the streets, liberals say it is democracy in action, when right-wingers do the same; they invoke the shade of the Klan and Father Coughlin.
We are currently living through one of the most partisan moments in American history. Starting with Bill Clinton and proceeding through the presidencies of first Bush and now Obama, we have had chief executives who have induced what is rightly termed derangement among their critics. Both sides of the political divide are guilty at times of hypocritically judging their opponents more harshly than their allies.
Not very long ago some on the right were happy to brand Bush-bashers as un-American or unpatriotic, a stance liberals found intolerable since it blurred the very real distinction between extremists and mainstream dissent. Today, the left is trying to play the same game in dealing with Obama-bashers. But this is not a pastime in which those who claim to represent American Jewry should play a part.
While Jewish groups have an obligation to hold accountable those who employ Holocaust analogies, they would do well to stay out of the sort of partisan crossfire into which Obama’s foot soldiers would like to fling them.