Big Digging: Now Obama's Embrace Of Derrick Bell Means He Might Be Anti-Semitic

Team Breitbart is out with yet another post attacking President Obama over his connection to late Harvard law professor Derrick Bell, this time claiming that Bell “promulgat[ed] ... antisemitic conspiracy theories,” which might have led Obama to embrace Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and call him a “friend.”

Not surprisingly, this latest attempt by the Breitbart team to gin up outrage over Bell, a respected academic, falls as flat as the rest. From Big Journalism (emphasis in original):

Let's be honest about Bell's promulgation of antisemitic conspiracy theories and let's be honest about what it might have to do with Obama's embrace of the Islamist, antisemitic conspiracy theorist Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who the President described as, a "friend and colleague. We find ourselves in frequent agreement upon a wide range of issues."

The suggestion that Obama's comments about Erdogan reveal latent anti-Semitism is outrageous. Turkey is a NATO ally of the United States that has supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In September 2011, the United States and Turkey reached an agreement that allows for the U.S. to install a “sophisticated American radar system” in Turkey as part of the NATO missile defense shield designed to protect “Europe against a potential Iranian missile attack.”

And if that's not enough, Obama isn't the first president to call Erdogan a friend.

When Erdogan visited the White House in October 2006, President Bush said, “I consider the Prime Minister a friend and a man of peace, and I welcome him.” And in November 2007, Bush said of Erdogan:

Mr. Prime Minister, welcome back to the Oval Office. As usual, we had a very constructive conversation. Turkey is a strategic partner and strong ally of America. I value our friendship at the state level, at the personal level.

Perhaps Team Breitbart should start digging around for Bush's connections to Derrick Bell.