Arianna Huffington asks readers to scribe an early concession speech for Ned Lamont, in the grand tradition of "as if." Her point: Lamont is being micro-managed by professional muddlers who, in an effort to have him appeal to some imagined "middle" have only succeeded in quelling his originality and his chances to defeat the E. coli of candidates, Joe Give 'em Gastric Distress Lieberman.

Arianna writes:

More shocking news from Watertiger.

Earlier in the day, Bush met privately with Republican donors at an estate in Greenwich, Conn., raising almost $800,000 for GOP House members facing tough re-election fights.

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Joe! Get off the pity pot! It's not attractive:

LIEBERMAN: "[Lamont] constantly criticizes, criticizes, criticizes. And he blames me for just about everything, maybe except the weather."

It's called a campaign, Joe. Got that?

And as far as the weather goes, Joe:

This is great news. Sirota to work for Lamont:

Clearly, this is an uphill fight - but then, uphill fights are the kind of campaigns I have always worked on. Why? Because trying to change the status quo is always an uphill fight. In 1998, people told me not to work for Joe Hoeffel because they said he couldn't win a Republican congressional seat in Pennsylvania - but we won. In 2004, people told me I was crazy for working for political outsider Brian Schweitzer because they said he could never win a statewide race in as Republican a state as Montana. Now, Schweitzer is the widely popular governor of Big Sky country. People said Ned Lamont couldn't win a primary against an 18-year incumbent who grossly outspent him with a massive warchest of corporate cash - but he won. Even after Ned's crushing primary victory, elite cynics in Washington and the national Republican Party apparatus that is supporting Joe Lieberman still say Ned can't win the general election. And once again, we're going to prove them wrong.

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Joe then:

"If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them and they will strike again."

Joe now:

AP:

"[LAMONT] It was Senator Lieberman who said, 'Let's put Michael Brown as No. 2 at FEMA.'"

Lamont is correct. Lieberman took all of 42 minutes to rubberstamp Brownie's appointment.

Terror alerts, terror threats, terror among us, terror without us, terror around us, terror, terror, terror.

Headline from today’s Meet The Press: Terror is a word worn-out from over and inaccurate use; in a word, terror, and all the attached isms have become a bore.

Sometimes it's really hard to keep track of it all, as we consider what motivates our leadership and what we can reasonably expect from Democrats. Matt, that wild, meshuga guy, gives a terrific primer that's clear and direct. Get ready, blogmates, we're takin' on the big leagues now:

You see, both Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton are considering switching their vote on Bolton, and there's probably a bunch of Senators who will follow them. Schumer in particular has been awful, publicly saying that there will probably be no filibuster of Bolton. So here we have a clear progressive electoral victory over the most right-wing Democrat, combined with a horrible year for Bush and a clearly disastrous foreign policy, and yet his nominee to the UN has an easier path to nomination. Why would Democrats even consider ratifying Bush's foreign policy through Bolton?

Many of you will not like this answer, just as I didn't like discovering it, but the reality is that right-wing wealthy neoconservatives whose pet project is Israel are the ones who are forcing the Democrats to the right.

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Going All the Way, or, Why Moderation is Killing America

A comment at this post got me thinking, as well as motivated to leave a reply there, about the discourse and drawbacks of “moderation.” If you’ve ever read any of my writing, you’ll now that the concept and I are not exactly bosom buddies, but I have respect for the various social and cultural ideologies that teach that it is a “good thing.” And yet- two bottles of wine a day, $200 a quarter to the Lieberman campaign, or two dozen widely read voices calling for the execution of half the populous for the “treason” of wanting and end to the war: none of these are “good things.”

Being an early morning person, I missed a lot of the crowing coming from the rabid late night victory lambs. But as I review various sites that were amazingly active last night (and everyone should think about upgrading to the 25$ server now, we’re only going to get bigger in the blogosphere as a result of all this), I’m thinking on a couple of lessons we can take away from our Glorious Victory. Let’s review.

1. Trust your feelings, Luke.

The headline for today's installment would have to be something like: ...

"Lively Political Discourse Dead In America, Democratic Governance, The Life Of The Mind To Follow, Sooner Rather Than Later."

Okay, so I'm not a headline writer.

The "hour's," (more like half that time, deducting commercials and George's feel-good celebrity segment at the show's end), most remarkable aspect was the evidence through-out of the ease and speed with which George Stephanopoulos has made the transition to gasbag extraordinaire, which is now total and complete: Could he care less about facts? Could he care less about clarity? Could he care less about being fair to the center left? Could he be more a creature of beltway buzz and conventional wisdom? Could he care less about journalistic integrity?

No, No, No, No, and No. He could not.

Details below.

The Courant:

Lieberman To Start Petition Drive
12:45 PM EDT, July 3, 2006
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, The Hartford Courant

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is to announce today he will petition for a place on the November ballot as an "independent Democrat," giving him a chance to stay alive politically should he lose an Aug. 8 primary for the Democratic nomination.

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Crap.

:
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: June 28, 2006
NEW HAVEN, June 27 — Connecticut's largest labor union on Tuesday endorsed Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in the Democratic primary, although many union leaders, meeting at their state political convention, complained of his support for the war in Iraq and foreign trade agreements. Many sounded loud "nays" when the voice vote was called.

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Hey, Lamont people: you should run with this. I, for one, had no idea it was a 4:1 ratio. I wonder what the actual residents of CT think of that? Senator from Someplace Else indeed.

Crying so hard, on the inside. Really. Under 50? Joe, we hardly knew you.

The reason why I cannot tell.

Maybe once he's out of office he can go to Haifa and pass around the change hat. I bet he can keep the little woman in pearls that way too.