The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has a splendid/witty column on the Obama-Netanyahu meeting characterizing it as a "surrender" by Obama, pointing out that a reporter had to bring up settlements, Obama didn’t. And this:

Four months ago, the Obama administration made a politically perilous decision to condemn Israel over a controversial new settlement. The Israel lobby reared up, Netanyahu denounced the administration’s actions, Republican leaders sided with Netanyahu, and Democrats ran for cover. So on Tuesday, Obama, routed and humiliated by his Israeli counterpart, invited Netanyahu back to the White House

This is significant. A few years back Milbank disgraced himself by attacking Walt and Mearsheimer as whiteknuckled Teutons, code for Nazis. Now he’s making the Israel lobby–correctly–the villain of the piece. It shows: a, how the conventional wisdom has changed in D.C., b, how ambitious journalists now regard the Israel lobby as a subject on which careers are made not lost, c, how desperate liberal Zionists, which is the rough camp I would put Milbank in off the cuff (he worked for the New Republic, he’s Jewish), are to see real pressure to save the Jewish state from the crazies, d, how competitive writers are with Peter Beinart, e, all the above. Of course there’s only one way this sort of inquiry goes: it brings you inevitably to the amount of Jewish money in the political process and the pro-Israel identity construction of American Jews. Why is Obama so scared? And can Milbank give him base?