Obama Trips Over a Dreidel

You just can't please everybody:

At the White House, as the Obama administration is learning all too well, a party is never a simple affair. (Just ask the Salahi-stricken Secret Service.)

The latest kerfuffle, the New York Times reports, involves the Obama administration's first Hanukkah party.

One bone of contention has been the guest list: Administration officials say they are inviting 550 people, just 50 less than President Bush invited to his White House Hanukkah parties. But reports in the Israeli press spawned fast-spreading rumors that the Obama White House was only inviting 400 – and that the Bush White House had actually invited twice that number.

It was, some suggested, a snub – and one that critics said should not come as a surprise.

The rumors appear to have been touched off by an opinion piece by Tevi Troy, who was a liaison to Jewish groups in the Bush administration. As the Times reports, Troy suggested the Obama administration was taking Jewish votes for granted, citing as evidence the administration's call for a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The guest list issue, Troy said, created "a nagging sense that there may be a studied callousness at work here."

I'm not quite so quick to assume that Obama is dissing the Jewish community, but if Joe Lieberman votes against Obamacare, all bets are off.