The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> DIRTY DIRTY POLITICS br> With Democrat hopes to retake the House and Senate seemingly crumbling by the day, both Senate minority leader Harry Reid and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi have grown increasingly alarmed about the growing anti-Semitic and racist tone of their party's base, say House and Senate Democrat leadership staff. /p>

"They have been monitoring the [Ben] Cardin and [James] Webb races and they are extremely concerned," says a Senate Democrat leadership aide. "On both campaigns' staffs and on the Internet we are hearing and reading an ugliness that we haven't seen in probably decades. It's embarrassing, but we're chalking it up to a small segment of young people who are frustrated at constantly losing and are lashing out. To think otherwise raises too many uncomfortable questions about our party."

Apparently the House and Senate leaders are more uncomfortable than their party's most visible leader, because according to Capitol Hill sources, both Reid and Pelosi have pressed Democrat National Committee chairman Howard Dean to renounce the racist and anti-Semitic language and campaign tactics employed by those most closely associated with Dean's wing of the party, but Dean has refused to do so.

"He doesn't think it's a problem," says a DNC source. "This is something dreamed up by desperate Republicans. If Dean were to speak out, it would undercut the morale of a party that is on the verge of a historic victory. He's not going to take that away."

In fact, the DNC may actually be encouraging it.

In the past two weeks, the DNC and Democrat Party have been embarrassed by racist and anti-Semitic attacks against Republican Senate candidates Michael Steele and Sen. George Allen. In the case of Steele, it was racist blogging posts. In Allen's it was planted questions in the media about his Jewish heritage. Within minutes of Allen's addressing the issue of his family's Jewish roots, popular Democrat-leaning sites, such as the Daily Kos, Daily DD, and MoveOn.org, were inundated with such posts as:

"George Allen's New Jew Revue"

"They seriously want us to believe that Allen never knew why his grandfather was thrown in a concentration camp?"

topics:
Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Religion