Sarah Jones writes:

Whatever you think of Ilhan Omar, you have to admit she’s fearless. In an interview with Politico’s Tim Alberta, the freshman Democratic representative from Minnesota criticized the insufficiencies of Barack Obama’s “hope and change,” pointing to the former president’s “caging of kids” at the border and his “droning of countries around the world” as proof. “We can’t be only upset with Trump,” she said. “His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was. And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

It’s one of the bolder criticisms a Democrat has leveled at Obama, and it’s even more remarkable considering the source. The Minnesota representative has just staved off censure from her own party, the latest development in a saga that began last week when she decried “political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country” Some interpreted this as a remark aimed at Jews, while others felt she was referring to pro-Israel lobbyists. Last month Omar, a Muslim and the first person in Congress to wear a hijab, deleted a tweet characterizing the decidedly pro-Israel posture of U.S. lawmakers as being “all about the Benjamins.” She later apologized, though she remained critical of the “problematic role of lobbyists in our politics,” including AIPAC.

The outrage over Omar’s tweet was as swift as it was loud. Much of it came from within the Democratic Party, and it often proved her point; on Twitter, Representative Juan Vargas declared that “questioning support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is unacceptable.” After progressive backlash, the party amended a planned resolution condemning anti-Semitism to address other forms of hatred, too. Omar voted for it, which should have ended the controversy. [Continue reading…]