NBC: US Rushed Brits to Make Arrests in Terror Plot.

Ari Shavit in Haaretz: Olmert cannot remain as prime minister.

So while the president was off on a fool's errand in Iraq, he was out to lunch on this liquid explosives issue, though everyone seemed to know about it. Good job.

My predilection is to note the Lieberman-Kerrey bond on Social Security phase-out. Kerrey's a diehard private accounts man. Lieberman flirts with it. But one good friend points out that the real bond, probably very much in play here, is Iraq. Both were big on the Chalabi Iraq liberation front back in the 1990s and they were the chief Democratic co-sponsors of the Iraq Liberation Act.

Interesting background info on an apparent falling out between Olmert and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who seems to have wanted to move to the diplomatic track much earlier and opposed the IDF bombing of Hizbullah HQ in the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut.

A pro-Social Security phase-out alliance?

Phase-out supporter retired Sen. Bob Kerrey signs up with Lieberman.

Democratic National Committeee spokesperson Karen Finney slams the Republican Party for a picture which appeared on the Republican National Committee Web site of Howard Dean with what appeared to be a Photoshopped Hitler moustache.

Here at TPM Media, as many techish companies do, we have a little internal chat system where we discuss editorial business and other topics through the course of the day. And yesterday, after I saw Greg Sargent's update that Lieberman was going down the 'A win for Lamont will be a victory for the terrorists' track, I openned up our chat and wrote something to the effect of, "I've always liked Joe, but with this 'victory for the terrorists', it's enough. F--k him."

Justin Rood shot back, you should write that. And he's right. So here I am.

Readers of this site know I've always had a soft spot for Lieberman. I was ambivalent about the primary race, didn't have a horse in it, I think I said. And it only became a simple matter for me after Lamont won. He's the Democratic candidate. End of story. Not because I felt differently about Lieberman necessarily. But I think all Democrats, all progressives, liberals, whatever, should support the Democratic candidate. And that's Ned Lamont. That and tell Lieberman to get out of the race.

But now Lieberman is not only running as the de facto Republican in the race, he's running as the worst sort of Republican, going on the trail claiming that any serious questioning of our policy in Iraq is a victory for the terrorists, even pulling in yesterday's terror plot take-down into his angle against Lamont. With Lamont, those guys might have blown up the plane. Leaving Iraq is a win for the terrorists. A Lamont win is a win for the terrorists. That was after Wednesday when Joe pledged to save the Democratic party from the extremists he seems to think make up the entire Democratic party. Except for Joe.

So questioning the president's policy on Iraq is a win for the terrorists. The Democratic party is outside the mainstream of American politics. I can go to Republicans for that, right?

So it's not just about the independent candidacy any more. It's about him. Enough. Just leave.

Grover Norquist on the Dems' iron wall on Social Security: ""The Democrats cannot be bribed, cajoled or threatened into voting for Social Security reform -- it can't happen."

Is a real GOP candidate about to jump in to the Connecticut senate race? Okay, a non-Lieberman GOP candidate? Seems like it.

Juliette Kayyem on what not to learn from the British counter-terrorism policy.

Campaign season is heating up, and the charges are starting to fly. The latest: in Minnesota, a GOP House candidate claims his Dem opponent sent a "spy" to infiltrate his operation. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

Amos Oz, from April 1996 in The New York Times, during the last flare up on Israel's northern border, but in a more hopeful time ...

The fighting in northern Israel and Lebanon that's still raging after two weeks started because Iran wants to destroy the peace process and because Syria -- at least as long as President Hafez al-Assad's dictated peace is rejected by Israel -- backs Iran.

It is a no-win situation that suits Iran's leaders. If Israel is attacked and doesn't retaliate, it turns Israeli citizens against peace. If Israel hits back, the Arabs turn against peace. Iran is pleased either way.

Islamic extremists want Israel to be loathed and isolated again in the Middle East -- Israel against the whole of Islam, the whole world against Israel.

Israel's goal has been the opposite: to isolate Islamic fundamentalism by making peace with the Palestinians and Arab nations. In fact, Iran and its proxies might have been quicker than Israel to grasp the idea that in a peaceful Middle East they would become as isolated as Saddam Hussein's Iraq. If the peace process collapses, however, Israel will once more be the neighborhood's leper.

Which country will find itself in unsplendid isolation? This is a subtle struggle, taking place primarily in people's hearts, not in military arenas.

In forcing the civilians of southern Lebanon to flee their homes and in the horrific accidental shelling of refugees at the United Nations base near Qana, Israel brought upon itself a moral and political defeat in this battle over hearts and minds.

The whole piece is really worth reading on many levels.

Minnesota Republican senate candidate Mark Kennedy, a dozen points behind Democrat Amy Klobuchar in latest poll (Rasmussen, 8/1), endorses Lieberman.

So does McGavick in Washington state. He's down 11 points (Rasmussen, 7/17).

It's an avalanche. All the GOP senate contenders who are sinking in the polls are endorsing Joe.

Experts: Lieberman's tech dudes were boneheads.

New docs suggest broader conspiracy in phone-jamming case.

Bush: Failed terror plot a reminder that everybody should stop complaining about how bad I screwed up Iraq.

Joe Lieberman says that Ned Lamont's Iraq policy would be a "tremendous victory" for terrorists.

Big court decision in the AIPAC/leaks case. Even private citizens with no government clearances can be prosecuted for unauthorized receipt and disclosure of classified information.

It's weird. I have some vague recollection that John Gibson was a local newscaster in LA when I was growing up. And that he was basically sane. What happened to him.

Late Update: TPM Reader LW commisserates with me about Gibson's bizarro fall ....

I have often wondered the same thing. I remember Gibson during the 1990s, anchoring much of the OJ Simpson coverage, or appearing on Geraldo Rivera’s various shows. Gibson at tat time seemed entirely reasonable, soft-spoken, calm – even-handed in analysis.

I have been wondering for a very long time – during his rants about “The War Against Christmas,” his chilling comments about the need for “minority religions” in America to basically watch their step, his numerous O’Reilly & Savage-like rantings, whether this is indeed what he thinks about things, or whether it is an act to “get on the right side” (no pun intended) of his Fox audience.

Keith Oberman of MSNBC often talks about his “sadness” regarding Gibson (who he says was an ex-colleague of his) and his transformation now into someone who Oberman has often picked as his nightly “Worst Person in The World” on his MSBC show.

Former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez to challenge Rep. Henry Bonilla in redrawn district.

Good Mark Schmitt stuff on the boneheaded Vietnam analogies. And my God are they boneheaded. Mark whacks my friends who are falling for this stuff so I don't have to.

President Bush just said the events in London are "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists."

Also a pretty stark reminder that President Bush's War on Terror, the way he's chosen to fight it, is at best irrelevant to combatting this sort of danger. These are homegrown Brits apparently trying to blow up planes over the Atlantic. Good thing we've got a 150,000 or so troops in Iraq to take the fight to them.

Ivo Daalder has more.

TPM Reader PB on Joe: "I imagine Joe wishes Ken, Tony, Dick, Karl and all the other Republicans heaping praise on him right now would just shut up. They are not going to help him with the Independent voters he needs to keep on his side in order to prevail in a three-way race. I'm sure that Karl Rove and company recognize this fact as well as anyone; they know they are not doing Lieberman any favors with their effusive praise. The fact is Joe has outlived his usefulness for them, and they're happy to throw him overboard in the hope that having a "weak-on-defense-extremist" boogeyman to kick around will minimize the electoral onslaught they are facing in November. That kiss Bush gave Lieberman is looking more and more like a Michael Corleone moment."

So, for all our very real and legitimate worry about dirty bombs and gas attacks, planes really do seem like they remain our chief vulnerability. And it makes sense. Flying bombs. Thousands of them in the air over our major cities at any one time. As I've written before, I have next to no confidence that this administration won't pump exaggerated or bogus terror plots for short term political advantage. Especially as we move toward an election they seem likely to lose. But when the Brits completely shut down their major international airport (though now the shutdown seems to be easing) I'm quite ready to believe they found something very real.

Rove and his crew of course will stop at no end of bamboozlement and terror manipulation for political ends though. And the timing, well ...

Let's wait and see how this develops.

Why are House Republicans keeping a key report under wraps? One senior Democrat suggests that its findings could expand the Duke Cunningham corruption scandal. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

Resignations at DOD as Cunningham bribery scandal taint spreads.

I'm sorry. I just don't see it.

Mike Allen has a piece in Time arguing that Republicans are thanking their lucky stars and Democrats are shaking in their boots because of the cudgel Ned Lamont's victory in Connecticut has given them for November.

The piece runs down each of the key GOP players -- Mehlman, Cheney, Snow -- each bellowing out RNC talking points claiming that Lieberman's defeat means the Democratic party is beholden to the hard-left and ostrich-like isolationists.

Lieberman, as Mike explains, is now slated to become the martyr to isolationism whom Republicans will laud at every turn. "On television and in speeches in coming days," writes Allen, "party officials and strategists plan to talk about their respect for Lieberman as a distinguished public servant and argue that Lamont's victory represents the end of the long tradition of strong-on-national-defense Democratic leaders in the mold of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy."

This is sad.

Not because I think any of this is true or that it will resonate with the public. Not even because I'm surprised at how easily many of my press colleagues pen stories like this recounting GOP press offensives without questioning whether it really seems likely to succeed.

What's really sad is that the nexus of national press and political operative bigwigs really needs to get over itself a bit here. Because once they do, they may actually be able to get over Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman is not a world-historical figure.

He's not fighting some long twilight struggle.

He thinks he's both. But he's not.

I really don't think the Missouri senate race is going to turn on Jim Talent challenging Claire McCaskill on whether she'll endorse Ned Lamont and abandon Joe Lieberman. I don't think most voters around the country really know or care that much about Joe Lieberman. And to the extent that they know who he is, outside of the committed partisans on both sides, they don't realize or think or imagine (as the Russert/Kristol/Matalin/Broder axis does) that he's this symbolically resonant figure on whom the fate of the nation may alas rest.

The heart of the matter here is that everyone knows Joe in DC. They like him. They think he's a nice guy, which he is. His staff likes him, which also makes him seem like a nice guy. He's schmoozed the city for two decades.

But really he's just a pol who ignored his constituents, went into serious denial about a major foreign policy disaster, was more lockstep with the president's non-policy than many Republicans, and got bounced by his constituents.

That's politics. And that's accountability. And, really? It's not that big a deal.

Many Americans are not comfortable with the idea of just pulling out of Iraq. But the war is really unpopular. I think most Americans realize that the president thinks his Iraq policy is a rousing success and most Democrats don't. They get that. They see it. They understand it. If Republicans think the Martyrdom of Joe is going to be their killer issue, let them have at it. They're trying to knock the Dems off their stride but they're showing their desperation. The whole thing is, in both the most serious and frivolous senses of the word, a joke.

Late Update: TPM Reader DS responds ...

It's really pretty clear. If the Democrats, in an anti-incumbent, disenchanted voter year, use the Lieberman/Lamont race to show people that their votes really matter, they can hope to achieve high, anti-incumbent turnout in November.

The Republicans, of course, want to nip that notion in the bud. They want, no, they need to make this a referendum on bloggers, the far-left, poor Joe Lieberman, soft-on-terror liberals.

What the Republicans truly want to avoid is another "kick-em-out" 1994 sentiment. Should that type of thinking take hold, we get both houses of Congress, and they will do anything in their power to prevent that, even if it means martyring Say It Ain't So Joe.

Sharp-eyed TPM Reader FG alerted me late this evening that TNR part owner Marty Peretz had spent the day engaging even more than the standard extent of self-parody and that I should go over to The Plank to investigate for myself. And I was not to be disappointed when I went to look for myself.

Marty has discovered what did Joe in: Bill Clinton.

Yes, as he notes, "When Clinton came into the state, Lieberman and Lamont were running dead even in the polls, more or less. Clinton's appearance began Lieberman's decline. Within two or three days, Lieberman was down by ten points."

And in case you're wondering, or in case you're not familiar with Marty Peretz, No, he's actually not kidding.

My pals at TNR must have gotten a kick out of that one. But, hey, Marty's the boss.

Or is one-third boss now? I can't remember.

I think Ryan Lizza's on to something. Lamont has a very brief window of time to shut down Lieberman's indie bid. And he's off to a slow start.

In addition to our New York-based Fall internships (which you can find out more about here), we have one slot for a DC-based intern who will work with TPMmuckraker's DC reporter-blogger Justin Rood. If you're interested, find out how to apply here.

In the column I wrote for Time.com last night I said the Lieberman flame-out was part of a larger disconnect growing between Washington and the rest of the country, almost in the way tectonic plates grind against each other with mounting tension until the pressure is cut loose in a massive earthquake. I don't think it's ideological in the narrow sense, or at least not unidirectionally ideological. But given the Republican dominance of the federal government, it's really bad news for the GOP.

And look at yesterday's election. Joe wasn't the only incumbent to go down. Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and Joe Schwarz (R-MI) both went down too. Schwarz, significantly, went down to a challenger on the right.

Each went down in their own way. And it's difficult to imagine a more inverted image than Lieberman and McKinney both getting whacked. But any pol watching this knows they're each a chapter of the same story. For three incumbents to go down in party primaries on one day when not that many elections were even held is close to unheard of.

Joe fires his whole staff.

Justin Rood debriefs the LieberWebHeads on just what their story is about what happened to the site. And well ...

So Karl Rove puts in a courtesy call to Joe Lieberman. And tonight RNC Chair Ken Mehlman is refusing to endorse the GOP nominee in the race, politician-cum-casino denizen, Alan Schlesinger. Does this mean Joe is now the de facto Republican in the race?

It seems that every time a Republican with ties to Jack Abramoff drops his reelection bid and tries to tap a successor, the law gets in the way.

I found this clip on Atrios's site from this morning's Today Show ...

LAUER: Senator, is there any phone call you could receive? Is there anyone in the Democratic Party who could call you today and ask you to drop out that you would listen to?

LIEBERMAN: Respectfully, no. I am committed to this campaign, to a different kind of politics, to bringing the Democratic Party back from Ned Lamont, Maxine Waters to the mainstream, and for doing something for the people of Connecticut. That's what this is all about: which one of us, Lamont or me, can do more for the future of our people here in Connecticut. And on that basis, I'm going forward with confidence, purpose and some real optimism.

Maxine Waters isn't really my kind of Democrat. But then, if I understand what's happened in the last 36 hours, Joe Lieberman isn't a Democrat at all anymore.

But more to the point. This isn't just inaccurate, it's pathetic. I'ts a like a mini-version of the Iraq War or the War on Terror. You're either with Joe or you're with the extremists. Apparently half of Connecticut Democrats are outside the mainstream.

This is really the attitude that got poor Joe into this bind.

The mainstream is Joe Lieberman, along with possibly Sean Hannity and Bill Kristol. If you disagree with Joe Lieberman, a disagreement about policy is the least of it. It's a major existential crisis for the Democratic party which risks conquest by unreconstructed leftists, extremists and miscellaneous other freaks.

The idea that Ned Lamont is 'outside the mainstream' on any issue I'm aware of is laughable.

As a matter of civics, if Joe Lieberman wants to run as an independent, good for him. If 51% of Connecticut voters want to vote for him, that's democracy. As a Democrat, he should get out of the race now. And every Democrat should tell him to.

If he wants to run as an independent he should and could go to Connecticut voters and say, "A lot of people in my own party disagree with me on this or that issue. But I've served all of Connecticut's citizens for 18 years. And I still think I can be the best senator. So vote for me."

I wouldn't agree with that. But I could respect it.

But he's not. It's all about him and stabbing his own party in the back while he disingenuously pleads that he's trying to save it. He can't admit or realize or get his head around the idea that his denial about Iraq and his obliviousness to his own constituents got him into this mess.

In the end, he just won't come clean. Forget about being a Democrat. Just be a man. It's time.

Over at TPMmuckraker, we're still tracking down the details of yesterday's web hacking allegations from Lieberman's campaign.

The latest - the FBI says that if the Lieberman camp cried "wolf," that's a prosecutable offense.

Reed Hundt on Ned's win and Joe's Indy run.

Todd Gitlin too.

Rove reaching out to Lieberman, offering support?

So Lamont won. But it was pretty close. The final spread was 52% to 48%. Actually a hair's breadth less than 52%.

And that makes me think back to Joe Lieberman's disastrous and highly revealing decision to hedge his bets by running in the Democratic primary and opting to run as an independent if he didn't win the primary.

Given the narrow margin, what do you think would have happened yesterday if Lieberman would have made a bold and clear decision to fight for the support of and abide by the decision of Connecticut Democrats?

Weinmann Case Update: A Navy official has now told the Navy Times that the country in question is "definitely not Israel."

See this earlier post for the details of the case I'm referencing.

Late Update: Late reports are pointing to Russia as the country in question.

My take on Lieberman's defeat at Time.com.

Pollard redux?

A Navy Petty Officer, Ariel J. Weinmann, is being held in the brig at Norfolk Navy base and will likely be charged with stealing a laptop with classified info on it and giving that info to a foreign government. That much is reported today in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. The Pilot earlier reported that Weinman was arrested March 26th.

The Jerusalem Post reports today that the Saudi paper Al-Watan is claiming that the foreign country is Israel. As near as I can tell, this is the first and so far only report making this connection.

Certainly not great timing, if the Watan story is accurate. And if it's true and the charges are proven, by all means, lock the traitor up and throw the book at him.

Reid and Schumer on Lamont ...

“The Democratic voters of Connecticut have spoken and chosen Ned Lamont as their nominee. Both we and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) fully support Mr. Lamont’s candidacy. Congratulations to Ned on his victory and on a race well run.

“Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic Senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the President more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction.”

Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) has proved she can call for an apology -- but can she give one? That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

I duke it out with Mickey Kaus at Bloggingheads.tv.

While the rest of the blogosphere was watching the returns come in from Connecticut, TPMmuckraker's Justin Rood was digging into the Lieberman camp's hacking allegations.

Apparently, the FBI was too.

Georgia Blowout. Johnson declares victory over McKinney. 59%-41%.

IT'S OVER: Lieberman concedes defeat, vows to run as independent in the general.

2/3 of the vote in in Georgia's 4th district and it looks like Rep. Cynthia McKinney will be looking for a new job. Johnson 58%, McKinney 42%..

Actually, put a fork in this one. Now it's 87.43% reporting. Johnson 59.08%, McKinney 40.92%.

Okay, I think we're pretty close to this one being over. CT-Sen. 94.39% reporting. Lamont 51.73%, Lieberman 48.27%. It's tight. Closer than I would have thought. But it's held pretty much steady for a while.

We're going to be breaking some news shortly on the Lieberman mystery site outage. Stay tuned.

Holding fairly steady. 89.17% precincts reporting. Lamont 51.60%, Lieberman 48.60%.

Still tight. But not a lot of movement. And Joe's running out of votes to come back. With 83.56% of precincts reporting it's 51.88% Lamont to 48.12% for Lieberman.

Computer problems slowing returns in Georgia 4th.

Huhhh. The Lieberman website still has a pretty flat accusation up on their site claiming that their "political opponents" hacked their website and calls on Ned Lamont to "make an unqualified statement denouncing this kind of dirty campaign trick and to demand whoever is responsible to cease and desist immediately." But our reporting on this throughout the day at Election Central and TPMmuckraker raises real question about whether any hacking even took place at all. And Lamont's campaigned categorically denied having anything to do with it.

What really blows me away though is that Paul Kiel got Lieberman's Internet consultant Dan Geary to concede that Lieberman was apparently running his whole website on an off-the-rack amateur web host account. The sort of thing you might use if you were posting pictures of the grand kids. Geary told Kiel the account the campaign used cost "a bit more" than $15 a month.

So, what? $25 a month? $50 tops?

Now, I know a bit about running websites on the cheap. I ran this one on a shoestring for the first three years TPM was online -- though even then when I was scraping enough for food and rent I was still paying more money than the Lieberman camp apparently was. And the thing is when you have that kind of account you really don't get enough information from the provider to have any clear idea what happened if your site goes down. And you certainly have no guarantee it can hold up under any kind of serious traffic -- especially not the kind these sites were going to get in the last 48 hours.

I don't know if they got hacked or caught under a crush of traffic. But from what we know it seems clear they were doing the equivalent of running their Internet camp with the equivalent of a bicycle when they needed an 18-wheeler.

Damn. This could be a squeaker. 76.87% reporting. Lamont 51.76%, Lieberman 48.24%. And Lamont lead has been slowly narrowing. Anyone who knows just what precincts are out probably has a good feel where this is going.

It's Lamont. But not by a huge margin so far. With 56% of precincts counted, Lamont 52.17%, Lieberman 47.83%.

Chris Bowers at MyDD has the most up-to-date running totals.

At TPMCafe Stirling Newberry reports from Lamont HQ.

Early reports have Johnson crushing Cynthia McKinney in Georgia. But my Georgia election expert tells me those early numbers are all from the whiter and more Republican parts of the district. So they don't mean much yet.

Lieberman's internet consultant speaks again: they pay "a bit more" than $15 per month for their web hosting. But that's not why their site crashed, he insists.

Connecticut Attorney General opens investigation into alleged Lieberman campaign web site hacking.

Update: Lieberman spokesman Dan Gerstein admits, despite earlier accusations, that they have "no evidence" that the Lamont campaign -- or Lamont supporters -- are behind the alleged hack attack on the Lieberman campaign web site.

Consultant to WA.GOPer McGavick on campaign tactics: "There are times you chop people's heads off and there are times when you don't. I've done both. This is not a formulaic business. This isn't chemistry."

Full Circle: Dennis Miller joins Fox News as contributor on Hannity & Colmes. Remember way back when before he was a whack?

Lieberman campaign internet consultant says that an unknown hacker has "fatally compromised" their site and "disrupted the entire campaign."

Update: The Lieberman campaign says that they've filed a complaint with the United States Attorney's Office and other agencies regarding the attack.

Wow, Tom DeLay really doesn't want to run for reelection. Now his camp is hinting that rather than run, he'll support a write-in candidate.

TPM Reader AC ...

Perhaps this is just a matter of semantics, but I’m wondering whether or not the people who “feel that Israel is committing criminal acts” feel that Hezbollah is also committing criminal acts.

One can argue that “an eye for an eye makes the world blind.” One can also argue that “the difference between war and genocide is the presence or absence of shooting back”. (Personally I don’t think the two ideas are mutually exclusive.) What is important to note from an objective standpoint is that Israel is using an organized, identifiably uniformed military force, the IDF, to combat an organized, largely non-uniformed paramilitary force that has chosen to operate within a civilian population, Hezbollah. On the other side of the conflict Hezbollah, in addition to engaging in combat against the IDF, has opted to launch hundreds of rockets on a daily basis aimed squarely at civilian populations (including areas with Israeli Arab and Christian populations). Zionism doesn’t make that true. Those are facts.

Whether or not you or I or anyone else embraces Zionism is beside the point. Hezbollah has quite clearly targeted Haifa, Tsfat, Kiryat Shmona and other Israeli cities as a strategic consideration. Zionism isn’t forcing Hezbollah to embrace asymmetrical warfare. Zionism isn’t forcing Lebanon to have a nationalized army which is either unwilling or unable to undertake the task of disarming Hezbollah. Zionism isn’t forcing the citizens of Lebanon to embrace Hezbollah or provide them the legitimacy conferred by inclusion in a democratically elected government. Zionism didn’t force the Bush Administration to sit on their hands for weeks before sending Secretary Rice to the region with no clear goals, objectives or guidance. Zionism isn’t forcing the Lebanese government to disregard U.N. Resolution 1559. Zionism didn’t force Hezbollah or Hamas to enter Israeli territory and kidnap IDF soldiers who were not engaged in combat operations against them. Those are also facts.

We can debate the merits of Zionism until the fatted calves come home. I know plenty of Zionists who have philosophical issues and deep personal and spiritual conflict with Zionism as a notion and in execution. But to conflate the merits of Zionism with the facts of this conflict as it has existed for the last month is irresponsible at best, whether or not one has a high blood alcohol content and whether or not one is engaging in that discourse with the Malibu Police Department. Until we (we meaning EVERYONE) embrace the fundamental principle that a life in Baghdad is equivalent to a life in Beirut is equivalent to a life in Bethesda is equivalent to a life in Bezet, we won’t get very far in our efforts at conflict resolution.

I've thought for a while, and considered posting on it, that for all the discussion of how targetted or not targetted Israel's attacks in Lebanon are, there's pretty little discussion of the fact that all of Hizbullah's rockets are intentionally aimed at civilian areas. Every one.

More generally there's little to be accomplished talking about the finer points of Zionism at this point. My point in raising the issue is simply to do what I've always tried to do with this site, which is give you my honest opinion on key matters at the given moment. That's where I stand. And it's a basic position that, as I told you yesterday, rises to the surface in me as I field various emails scoping out and evaluating the different parts of the world the Israelis should be deported to. For reasons I'm not quite clear on there seems to be a particular focus on Wyoming as the place they should all be shipped to. But that's another matter. Many readers have pointed out that 'Zionism' has become a very loaded word, fraught with the potential for misunderstanding and provocation. I recognize this. And yet, there it is. We can't run away from it. Certainly, someone in my line of work cannot. It's a broad historical movement with a history and myths, glories and victims. And I've told you where I stand on it.

In any case, all that is happening right now confirms in my mind the central importance for Israel of coming to a settlement with the Palestinians not in the distant future but now. Very soon. Both as a matter of justice and self-interest. A full state, based on the green line, with access to water and the sea. With all that has happened over the last six or seven years it may not be able to be a warm peace at first or perhaps for some time. But it has to happen, both, as I said, as a matter of simple justice, but also as a matter of basic self-interest for Israel and the United States. The Palestinians themselves have never been an existential threat to Israel. That was clear as far back as the 1948-49 war. But some of her neighbors and particularly those in the wider neigbhorhood very much are. And the running wound of the occupation only inflames and complicates defending against those threats.

Now really is the time for those who believe in a just two-state solution in Israel-Palestine and a deescalation of the warfare threatening to tear the entire region (and US power along with it) apart to make themselves heard. Someone has to shout above the recrudescent Jew-haters on the one hand and the worshippers of force and militarism on the other.

Lieberman's spokesman on their internet troubles.

He says their campaign website was hacked and offers an email from their hosting company to prove it.

WaPo poll: Dems now leading Republicans on War on Terrorism.

KH's got my number: "Funny in your 'Breezier' email post you chose to focus on the very last line of the email and none of the "what ifs." One plus for Bush on the Israel/Lebanon fighting is that it is driving a huge wedge between Progressives. Those of us that feel that Israel is commiting criminal acts and those of you who feel they can do no wrong. I for one read your posts in a totally different light now that you Zionist roots are exposed."

My hang-up about eliminationist rhetoric.

Ney bowed to the ultimate threat: no post-Congress payday on K Street.

Despite the bribery allegations, bundles of cash in his freezer, and the FBI raid on his congressional offices, Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) looked to have his re-election locked up -- but not anymore. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

One of the breezier emails on Israel ...

Over the years I have been a strong supporter of Israel's right to be. Now I am wondering.

What kind of neighbor has Israel been? Would you want to live next door?

How would you like it if your neighbor annexed your land? Locked you up? Lied to you? Periodically threw bombs at your house?

What if Israel had taken a different path? What if they had been less afraid, less brutal? What if the billions spent on fences and bombs and soldiers had been spent on making sure their neighbors had a piece of the pie?

What if Israel hadn't relied on their military might so much? What if they had been the ones to help open health clinics, provide opportunities, help people build a good life (instead of Hezbollah)?

Maybe it's time for Israel to change its ways or move on.

I'm not sure what it means when a country moves on. Where does it go?

Remember, there's more than one incumbent who looks ready to get knocked out in a primary tomorrow. The most recent poll out of Georgia 4 makes it look even more likely than in Connecticut that the incumbent is going to get dumped. Challenger Hank Johnson is pulling 53% of the vote to Rep. Cynthia McKinney's 40%. The sample is small -- 400 likely voters. But it's in line with other recent polls.

For all the other polls out in the last 48 hours check out our new Election Central Poll Tracker.

TPM Reader RB chimes in on the Joe website mystery ...

I own a web hosting company (***********.com) that uses the same software as the Lieberman site. That screenshot that the Lamont folks grabbed is a standard automated warning from a website control panel known as "Cpanel". Most large webhosts host many thousands of domains and their systems are automated. If a bill goes unpaid, or bandwidth is exceeded by a specified amount, the site gets auto-suspended and that Cpanel page replaces the index page. It's possible that the site was suspended for exceeding their bandwidth allotment as opposed to not paying their bills, but for someone like Joe Lieberman to
not have his ducks in a row on the night before an election like this is quite telling.

Other knowledgeable emailers suggest the same possibility -- not that Joe folks necessarily forgot to pay their bill but that they tripped some bandwidth or server load limit and hadn't made arrangements in advance to keep the site online if this happened.

Not sure what to make of this. The night before the election and Lieberman's site is apparently out of commission. The Lamont campaign says it's for non-payment and they have a screen shot that suggests they're right.

Late Update: TPM Reader DB on early lights out for Lieberman ...

I've never known a host to put up a banner that says, essentially, the bills aren't paid. They usually just go dark.

The site is hosted at theplanet.com, in Dallas. Here's the site's Whois:

Friends of Joe Lieberman
P.O. Box 231294
Hartford, CT 06123
US

Domain Name: JOE2006.COM

Administrative Contact:
Diana Fassbender **************@yahoo.com
Friends of Joe Lieberman
P.O. Box 231294
Hartford, ct 06123
US
Phone: 203-********
Fax:
Technical Contact:
Domain Administrator hostmaster@securesites.com
Friends of Joe Lieberman
PO Box 3895
Englewood, CO 80155
US
Phone: +180.14370220
Fax:
Billing Contact:
Diana Fassbender **************@yahoo.com
Friends of Joe Lieberman
P.O. Box 231294
Hartford, ct 06123
US
Phone: 203-********
Fax:

Record updated on 2005-09-03 13:33:00
Record created on 2002-06-23
Record expires on 2007-06-23
Database last updated on 2006-08-07 22:14:49 EST

Before taking a site dark, any reputable host will send many emails to the admin and billing contacts. What does Diana Fassbender have to say about it?

Plus, unless someone there did it deliberately, it seems unlikely that a reputable host would take a sitting U.S. Senator's site dark the night before an election.

To me, as a technology professional, this doesn't add up.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Way back at the dawn of the net, well, a bit after the dawn in 1996, I ran a website for now-Senator Jack Reed (D-RI). It was the campaign website for his first run for senate. I don't remember exactly how we did it but I think I just had them set up on an off the rack account with some provider. If a bill wasn't paid they probably would have just pulled the plug. It was probably automated or if not then probably the person pulling the switch would have been someone who wouldn't have paid any attention to the site's content. (This was back when I made extra money designing websites when I was in graduate school.)

But that's ancient history. A website is a much bigger deal nowadays, especially this one. So it does seem a bit odd.

Anyone know any more about this?

Well, damn, this is a good day for Nick Lampson, isn't it. No more appeals. No more nuthin'. Tom DeLay is the Republican candidate for Congress this year in the 22nd district. The run for the hills routine didn't work after all.

Late Update: The Texas GOP responds here.

Last chance! Tom DeLay's electoral fate is in the hands of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Update: Woops! That was fast. Scalia has denied DeLay's stay request. That means DeLay is stuck on the ballot.

A late Joe surge? I'll believe it when I see it. But the chatter from Lamont supporters over the weekend that the race is closer than people thought is at least somewhat borne out by the latest Quinnipiac poll which has a six point spread.

So Brent Wilkes went and spilled his guts to The New York Times. But an examination of what he spilled shows that it was much more calculated than that.

I didn't bribe anybody, Wilkes is saying - I was extorted.

Max Sawicky on the Connecticut panic button.

The Middle East situation is so depressing. Far better the benign diversion of why Bob Ney is running for the hills.

Here's a quick follow-up on my post from last night about the Israel-Lebanon war. In my post I referred to "my core belief in the Zionist project." And a number of readers have written in to ask what I mean by that.

Zionism is too multifaceted and controversial a subject to define here at TPM. And in any case what Zionism 'is' or 'means' isn't really relevant in this case. What's relevant is what I mean or meant when I identify myself with it.

Here's what I mean. I believe in the project of building a democratic and secular Jewish state in Palestine.

Some of Israel's enemies and too many of her friends and advocates use the word to mean in a Jewish state in all of historic Palestine or even, as used to be the Revisionist credo, a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River.

That's not what I believe.

I believe there should be a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza. Not a collection of autonomous cantons but a full state, with the border being the Green Line or some very near approximation of it. As Ben-Gurion saw from the beginning and others like Moshe Dayan realized not that long after, trying to settle the West Bank and Gaza was a terrible mistake, one born of Israeli triumphalism, fed by coalitional politics in Israel and constantly enabled by the intransigence of the Arab states.

Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) drops his reelection bid.

The Justice Department saddles up against the latest threat to the Republic: Maine. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

Anthony Shadid on the ground in Tyre and Sidon, as refugees return to their homes, resigned to a long war. As is almost always the case, Shadid is one of the best.

A few late thoughts from Mark Schmitt on Connecticut and the Lieberdammerung.

As the Israel-Lebanon war has unfolded, there's been an ancillary debate in the blogosphere about why liberal or progressive blogs have been comparatively silent on the subject. I've written more and more on the topic as the weeks have worn on. But, still, I've probably written less about it than other topics. Especially for a topic that has so riveted my attention and engaged my passions.

So here are some thoughts about why that might be.

First, though it likely goes without saying, I can only speak for myself. And that isn't just a throwaway line. Each blog has a different politics and viewpoint. And what might be less obvious, each has a different way in which the author or authors interact with readers.

Having written this blog for almost six years, I've long made it a rule not to cover or comment on every story that's in the news. Sometimes a story has my attention and my interest but I simply don't have anything to add. So I don't write anything, even though that often prompts emails from readers who say I'm giving the topic short shrift.

But as this war has progressed I've realized there's something more at work in my writing process. At first I wasn't quite sure what it was. And then it became clear to me a little more than a week ago.

I'm hearing two streams of conversation about the war -- two whole worlds of conversation and debate, you might say, often as distinct from each other as night and day.

One is the one we all see every day in the mainstream news -- the major papers and news networks and so on. And then there's another -- one I'm exposed to largely, but not exclusively, through email we get at TPM.

And it's this latter conversation that's engaged my attention, rattled me and intensified and deepened my belief in Zionism.

There's a whole detailed and after a while sterile debate about what sort of criticism of Israel amonts to 'anti-Semitism' and what doesn't. Suffice it to say that many of these emails have breathed a tone of hostility and double-standard toward Israel specifically and sometimes Jews generally that have left my head spinning. They range from wild conspiracy theories about the origins of this war to the blanket assumption that every civilian death in Lebanon was an intentional killing of civilians and a war crime. From there -- where to begin? -- we have debates over just when it was that Israel forfeited its right to exist -- the murder of Rabin, through a rather inverted logic, seems to be a favorite -- to where the Israelis should be deported to when the state is liquidated, and so on.

I'd like to say I'm not surprised that these views are out there. But I'm not sure I can quite say that honestly. It is more than I expected. And the intensity and sometimes the violence of it has surprised me.

Now, over the transom email on as emotional and controversial a topic as this is no way to get a guage on public opinion generally. And these are among the more extreme examples. Or relatively so. In any case, my point is not to get into just how widespread this view of the situation is. But it's the one that's caught hold of me, the one I find myself responding to. And in a few posts I've done just that, vented my thoughts on this topic -- here at TPM and also at TPMCafe where these debates have become more public and even led to the banning of a small number of registered users of the site.

But when I have written in response to this vitriol, I realize my response seems out of context and in a sense out of left field. Because what is it exactly I'm responding to? When I attack this or that double standard Israel is held to or the subterranean animus against the Jewish state am I really talking about anything you see in the Post or on ABC News? Hardly. It's almost like responding to an offensive radio broadcast that few of the people around you can here. And it is this disjuncture that I think has held me back from writing about the topic more than I have. Because in the mainstream debate I find myself very critical of Israeli policy on many issues -- particularly on the territories and particularly since 1996 -- and trying to wrestle with and figure out some way to pull the region back from the brink to which this administration has brought it. And then in this other debate I find myself driven back upon my core belief in the Zionist project and Jews' right to fight for their existence. And these are two points of departure for conversation that are, to put it mildly, difficult to speak from at the same time. It's a dissonance that's clogged my writing. But I'm going to work harder to overcome it.

There's no party more smarmily mendacious in the Social Security debate than the Washington Post editorial page. As long-time readers know, for several years the GOP has been trying to fool voters and protect vulnerable incumbents with unpopular positions by continually forcing changes in the name of their policy on Social Security. For literally decades they called their private account policy 'privatization'. But when support for the policy began to go south they insisted that the name for the policy was actually a slur. They even went so far as to say it was a name of denigration devised by Democrats.

Friday's Post editorial on Social Security actually went so far as to ape not only the 'it's not privatization' bamboozlement but even took the GOP's lead banning the phrase 'private accounts' in favor of the better poll-testing 'personal accounts'.

From the Post ...

Yesterday an e-mail sent out on behalf of Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, dismissed Henry M. Paulson Jr.'s comments on "privatizing" Social Security, adding that this policy has been "soundly rejected by the American people."

The Social Security reform that President Bush pushed last year involved personal retirement accounts. But it did not involve "privatization": The accounts, which were to be optional, were to be designed and administered by the government, with no opportunities for Wall Street salesmen to foist enormous hidden fees on unsuspecting workers.

On one level, semantics is certainly not as important as the substance of the underlying policies words describe. In this case, 'privatization', by every relevant standard and criterion, is the appropriate word for the policy in question. But editorial pages are supposed to forums for forceful discussion and advocacy of policy unencumbered by either sides spin and bamboozlement, but especially by one side's intentional efforts to deceive voters. In this case the Post really is an arm of the RNC.

What do you think will happen in Connecticut on Tuesday? Let us know here.