Politico to go: Check your fact, fact-checker

The 2012 Election is still sixteen months away, but the discussions about whether President Obama will be able to retain the same large portion of the Jewish vote as he did in 2008 remains an obsession with the mainstream media.

On Monday, the Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote a piece about Jews and the President which spread stereotypes about Jews and Republicans. Kessler’s piece was designed to call into question the motivation of GOP candidates who support Israel as well the American Jews who oppose the President’s Middle East policy.
The article, “Obama and Israel: stalled diplomacy or ‘suspicion and distrust’?” begins with quotations from GOP presidential candidates Romney, Pawlenty and Bachmann, all criticizing Obama’s policy toward Israel.
“The latest Gallup poll shows that President Obama has 60 percent approval rating among Jewish Americans. Jews generally are a reliable vote for Democrats, and in the 2008 election, exit polls show Obama received 78 percent of the Jewish vote. That gap has sent GOP hearts aflutter, though the polling should be viewed with caution; 60 percent approval is still 14 percent higher than the president’s overall approval rating.
Still, GOP candidates for president sense an opening. A line attacking Obama and his policies on Israel is now a standard part of their stump speeches. The question is whether these attacks are fair or accurate?”
Kessler has a logic flaw here.  He is correct in saying that Jews are generally a reliable vote for the Democrats (according to Gallup 66% of Jews are Democrats), where is logic falls apart is since most Jews are Democrats, why would he compare their approval of Obama to the total population of which only 45% of which are Democrats. Obama’s support from Democrats is much more stable than that of independent and GOP voters. If the Jewish support of Obama is compared to a re-weighted general population whose party affiliation matches theirs (66% Democrat, 27% GOP and 7% independent) we find that Obama is losing Jewish support more than twice as fast as the general population (for the full analysis refer to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-gallups-analysis-of-jewish-voters.html)
Kessler also forgets to mention that if Obama received only 60% of the Jewish vote in 2012 (which is very unlikely), it would be the lowest Democratic total since Jimmy Carter in 1980.
I also take issue with Kessler’s contention that the mentioned GOP candidates are attacking Obama on Israel because they see an opening.  Michele Bachmann spent the summer of 1974 working at Kibbutz Be’eri in Israel, Romney made strong pro-Israel statements during the 2008 campaign before Obama was nominated, and Tim Pawlenty was leading trade missions to Israel back in 2008 when he was governor of Minnesota.
Perhaps Kessler can’t comprehend that Israel is not just a “Jewish issue.” Some politicians even support Israel because it is the right thing to do for America. Granted it is a foreign concept for a progressive newspaper such as the Washington Post, but it does happen.
Kessler tries to make the GOP criticism of Obama regarding Israel a bigger deal than the candidates have made it.
“We would be foolish to venture an opinion on each side’s collection of historical facts because, seriously, it is a no-win situation. But Obama’s treatment of Israel has become such a key part of the GOP arsenal that it is worth exploring the President’s performance.”
The Washington Post fact checker’s characterization of bashing Obama’s treatment of Israel as a key part of the GOP arsenal belies the truth. If he were following the same campaign as the rest of us, Mr. Kessler would understand that the number one “key part of the GOP arsenal” is the economy, number two, three, and four are the economy, the economy, and the economy, in that order.
 Obama, perhaps because of his name and his background, found his views on Israel under scrutiny even during the last election. He didn’t help matters then by making observations that antagonized some of Israel’s more loyal supporters: “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”(Ironically, once he became president, Obama ended up with a Likud prime minister with whom he has had a testy relationship.)
Here, the fact checker is claiming the people who questioned Obama on Israel during the 2008 campaign, did so out of racism another incorrect assertion. Mr. Kessler’s “fact-check” of the GOP positions on Israel was actually just another defense of President Obama by a progressive media vehicle and should be treated more like a campaign piece than a “fact check.”

Jeff Dunetz is the Editor/Publisher of the political blog “The Lid” (www.jeffdunetz.com). Jeff contributes to some of the largest political sites on the internet including American Thinker, Big Government, Big Journalism, NewsReal and Pajama’s Media. Jeff lives on Long Island.