It reminds me of when your spouse stops talking to you for leaving your shoes in the living room when she's really mad because you forgot your anniversary.

AIPAC is blasting President Obama for presenting a White House freedom medal to Mary Robinson, former Irish President. It claims she is anti-Israel and quotes the late Congressman Tom Lantos (known for championing human rights except when the violator was Israel) as saying she is a bigot.

All this over a medal -- a medal! -- simultaneously being presented to civil rights leader, Joseph Lowery (close friend and supporter of former Representative and pro-Palestinian activist Cynthia McKinney), Bishop Desmond Tutu (long time critic of the occupation) and the great gay rights activist Harvey Milk (a Jew who shunned Judaism).

The administration says that it is honoring Robinson for her human rights work, especially her leadership on women's issues. I guess it never occurred to the White House to scour the record of every White House award recipient to make sure he or she was okay on Israel (or gay marriage, or immigration, or evolution, or choice).

The Jewish right does not apply this standard to themselves.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Malcolm Hoenlein, and Joe Lieberman, among others, heaped praise on Pastor John Hagee last month at a Washington, DC Christians United for Israel confab (Lieberman says Hagee is a modern day Moses). They are utterly indifferent to his vicious anti-Catholicism and gay bashing. In fact, by them, if you are pro-Israel, that's that. End of story. The flip side of that is that those who criticize Israel are rotten people.

Anyway, this is not something about Mary. It is about the fear in certain quarters that Obama is dead serious about pushing hard for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. And that is good news.

The issue raised by the AIPAC complaint is not entirely specious. I have long hated the idea that a major bridge in the Washington area is named after arch-racist Woodrow Wilson. Those who would defend the naming would say that he is not being honored for his white supremacist views but in spite of them. I don't agree. I wouldn't name a slug after Woodrow Wilson.

But that is not how it works. People are honored for their diplomacy, their acting, their athletic skills without regard to everything they said on other issues. I don't agree with Robinson on Israel but so what. She has a long history as a peace activist and humanitarian She despises the occupation and has little use for Zionism. But that is not what she is being honored for. One is, after all, entitled to like or dislike any country one chooses. Including, in fact, our own.

If AIPAC isn't busy this summer, it might want to investigate what Ty Cobb is doing in the Baseball Hall Of Fame. Sure he was the best baseball player in history but he was also a racist and an anti-semite. Even worse, he probably would be anti-Israel too. Throw the bum out.

Here is the Ha'aretz report and the AIPAC statement.

Meanwhile ADL makes clear its opposition to Obama on Mideast.