At first expressed in whispers, but now being yelled from the rooftops by some of the party's most influential figures, Ellison is being smeared as both an anti-Semite and enemy of Israel — the same smears virtually any critic of the Israeli government reflexively encounters, rendered far worse if the critic is a prominent American Muslim.

Three days ago, the now ironically named Anti-Defamation League pronounced Ellison's 2010 comments about Israel "deeply disturbing and disqualifying." Other Israel advocates have now joined in. What are Ellison's terrible sins? He said in a 2010 speech that while he "wanted the U.S. to be friends with Israel," the U.S. "can't allow another country to treat us like we're their ATM."

As the full speech makes clear, he was referring to the indisputable fact that while Israel continues to take billions of dollars every year from the U.S. — far more than any other country receives in aid — it continually disregards and violates U.S. requests to stop ongoing expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, often in ways seemingly designed to impose the greatest humiliation on its benefactor: