Religion of Peace...and Progeny: Did you know that Brooke Shields is a lineal descendent of Mohammed, allegedly. So am I, for that matter, and so are you, if you are of European ancestry. Just don't tell Charles Johnson....

Another pundit sees fit to blame the "McGovernites" for the defeat of St. Joseph. Thomas Edsall writes in the New Republic:

In a quick and dirty analysis of the difference between the Lamont and Lieberman voters based on income, education, and other demographic data from across Connecticut, Ken Strasma of Strategic Telemetry found that Lamont's strongest support came from areas with high housing values, voters with college or graduate degrees, and parents with children in private schools. Lieberman's votes, in contrast, came from the cities, renters, blue-collar and service-sector workers, and those receiving Social Security benefits.

There is nothing wrong with upscale liberals or downscale renters; a vote is a vote. The problem for the Democrats is (and has been for more than a quarter century) that liberal elites are disproportionately powerful in primaries--where they turn out in much higher numbers--and in the operations of the party itself. In presidential campaigns, these voters have nominated a succession of losers, including George McGovern, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. The power of this wing of the party is easy to see in battles against Republican Supreme Court nominees, when Democratic opposition concentrates on such issues as abortion and sexual privacy to the virtual exclusion of questions of business versus labor, tort law, and the power of the state to regulate corporate activity.

With all due respect, I'm not sure that's an accurate breakdown of the votes. The exit poll done by CBS/New York Times showed almost no divergence in the vote based on income; Lieberman barely won among those who made less than $50k, and Lamont barely won above that total. Lamont did win a clear majority of votes, according to the exit poll, among those two "elitist" voting blocs, union members and African-Americans. Lieberman won among Catholic and Jewish voters, and among voters who never attended college. There was no gender gap to speak of. In short, this was a fairly typical intramural battle between two Democrats, and not some bellweather repudiation by Brie-snorting elites against the working class.

How would you like to be the campaign staffer that wrangled this celebrity endorsement? At the very least, it should quiet any talk about Mel Gibson not being a conservative....

A good analysis of the effects of artificial testosterone on an athlete. The consensus seems to be that a one-off boost (such as what Floyd Landis has been accused of) will do nothing to improve performance, since the body's response is to produce less of the hormone, thereby negating the immediate benefit; for artificial testosterone to improve athletic performance, it needs to be taken frequently over a period of time.

Shorter Jacob Weisberg*:

However bad the war may be, don't punish its cheerleaders.

There is something truly pathetic about anyone having to use the George McGovern card on a 21st Century election. Putting aside the fact that you can't use a thirty-year old election to predict anything about what will happen this year, or in 2008 or 2010, no more than one could have plausibly attacked FDR and the New Deal in the 1932 Election simply because William Jennings Bryan had failed running on a similar platform in 1896. As Mark Schmitt pointed out earlier this week, the post-McGovern Democratic Party had to battle the notion not just that they were too dovish, but the fact that American involvement in Vietnam had been started by Democrats. Anti-war Democrats may have been distrusted by the public at-large, but it was the party hawks, the Scoop Jackson/Hubert Humphrey wing of the party, that were completely discredited by the disaster in Vietnam.

Obviously, the ongoing debacle in the Persian Gulf cannot be tied to the party that has been out of power this decade. One can hardly say that the party doves, those who have always seen this adventure as folly, will be discredited; the public has an annoying tendency of not distrusting people who were right from the start. It will be a long time before any Republican President is going to be able to rally the people behind another discretionary war, notwithstanding the ingrained hawkishness of Americans. More likely, we'll see a resurgence of isolationism within conservative ranks, and the Paleo-Con v. Neo-Con battle will make the party divisions the Democrats sustained after 1968 seem tame indeed.

*with proper credit to Elton Beard, of course.

Lieberman Concedes !! But only for tonight...huge turnout provided the difference. Kos finally gets a real notch on his belt. There will be intense pressure on the Senator to act graciously in defeat in the next few days; I doubt that he's gonna hold most of the 48% of the Dems he got tonight.

UPDATE: Marc Cooper says it best about the Senator's independent run:

I already heard KOS on Air America hyperventilating against this move, mumbling something about some request he plans to make to Harry Reid to expel Lieberman from the Democratic caucus.

I have to scratch my head and wonder what makes some people so phobic about democracy. What is ever gained by restricting access to the ballot? I've already written about how I think Lieberman is a putz. And I'm pleased he lost. But moaning and bitching about him running as an independent seems ridiculous to me.

The way you keep people from gaining elected office is by beating them in elections -- not by keeping them off the ballot. That is, if you believe in democracy or unless you are Fidel Castro.

Beating St. Joseph in the general election will send an even stronger signal about the public's anger over the war, since it won't just be a rejection from Democrats, but from Independents and Republicans as well. And it's going to happen. Bring It On !!

Election day in Connecticut. One thing that interested me about yesterday's poll was the class breakdown. Lamont, the more progressive of the two candidates, is routing Lieberman among wealthy and upper-middle income voters, while the incumbent has a slight lead with voters of below-average incomes. Since people with means tend to be more likely to vote than people without, that's a good sign for the challenger, although I'm somewhat skeptical about the Democrats appealing to Luxury Box Liberals as our way out of the political wilderness.

Another sad loss for the Left Coast. There's fast food, and then there's In n' Out. You always get a good, fresh burger and fries, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you're being served by people not being paid a peon's wage.

Do I detect a note of sarcasm? From two recent court decisions, concerning the perfect law our Congress passed last year:

"During hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, evidently testimony was received suggesting that BAPCPA (the Bankruptcy Abuse Protection and Consumer Protection Act) was perfect." S. 256 Hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Feb. 10, 2005

--In re TCR of Denver, LLC, 338 B.R. 494, 498 (Bankr.D.Ct. 2006)

"It has been reported that a "technical amendments" bill is in the works to fix various glitches in BAPCPA, notwithstanding Congressional testimony that it was so perfect that not a word need be changed."

--In re McNabb, 326 B.R. 785, 791 (Bankr. D.Ariz. 2005) It's been sort of a pet hobby of bankruptcy judges, trying to figure out the most poorly drafted, idiotic and/or bizarre passage in the law, and throwing it back into the face of its hubristic supporters. Shows what happens when you let the bottom third of our nation's law schools band together to draft laws in our nation's Capitol.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, in his own words. For all the Beltway claims that this challenge is motivated from some "elitist" contempt by progressive and liberal bloggers, Ned Lamont wouldn't even be close if St. Joseph hadn't been so conspicuously contemptuous of the party base during his Senate tenure. This isn't about making bogus claims that Lieberman is a "vichy Democrat", or that his vote to invoke cloture on the Bankruptcy Bill meant that he secretly supported the measure, for example. It's about his unwillingness to use his bully pulpit to take the battle to the Republicans.

51-45: Lamont's lead is cut in half in less than a week. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this poll is the gender gap: the challenger has a comfortable, thirteen point leed with men, but Lieberman is keeping this close by tying Lamont among women. So much for the Alito cloture vote having any importance...six points is the trigger, I think. If St. Joseph finishes within this margin, then I think he claims Joementum and runs through November (and probably wins). Anything worse, and he has to look in the mirror and salvage some dignity from the rout by conceding.

Three major Hollywood players, including Steven Spielberg, are backing Ahnolt in his reelection bid in a big, big way. Even more significantly, the three previously opposed the recall effort that brought Schwarzenegger to power in the first place, and had been high profile supporters of Gray Davis.

Lefty blogs need to call a moratorium on the use of Photoshop. It's sleazy and unethical to doctor a photo when you're posting on something unimportant (eg., a photo "showing" an SC cheerleader "celebrating" a Texas touchdown in the last Rose Bowl), so why should it be tolerated in the context of political advocacy over life-and-death issues? And while we're at it, let's vow never to make a point by putting the likeness of an adversary in blackface. Amos & Andy has been off the air for fifty years, and those for whom that is still a visceral image are collecting Social Security. The rest of us just think that the person who creates such a caricature is a jackass.

Arthur Lee, 1945-2006: A giant in our local music scene, Lee influenced both the psychedelic and punk generations. His group, Love, had only two hit singles, but both were classics that sound as fresh today as they did forty years ago: "My Little Red Book", a Burt Bacharach composition which was a huge hit in Los Angeles and on the West Coast, and "7 and 7 Is", their biggest national hit, and for decades a staple for any self-respecting garage band. He hit on hard times, and for awhile he was probably the most famous person to be serving time under California's Three Strikes law. In recent years, he toured Europe with Love, performing songs from their seminal 1967 album, Forever Changes, before calling it quits last year upon the onset of leukemia, which took his life yesterday. Requiescat in pacem.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus has his own tribute, here.

The normally reliable Stuart Rothenberg, on one possible consequence of a Ned Lamont victory:

Some Democrats fear that a three-way contest could encourage Republicans to find a way to force their nominee out of the race and replace him with a much more serious Senate candidate. But a Lamont victory would not seriously threaten the Democrats’ hold on that seat unless the Republicans were to find a stronger nominee.

Lamont’s victory, however, would not be without its downside for Democrats, since it would only embolden the crazies in the party, a consideration not lost on other Democratic elected officials and strategists.

Lieberman’s defeat is likely to add to the partisanship and bitterness that divides the country and Capitol Hill, and to generate more media attention to grassroots bomb-throwers who, down the road, are likely to make the party less appealing to swing voters and moderates. (emphasis added)

Last time I checked, it was the "crazies" in the party that unquestioningly supported the Bush Administration's policies in the Middle East. After three years of abject failure and lowered national prestige, those in the Democratic Party who continue to back the Neocons' Grand Adventure are certainly more nuts than anything Little Green Firedogs might be blogging about this week.

54-41: That's the lead Ned Lamont now has over Senator Joe Lieberman in the race to be the Democratic Senate nominee in Connecticut. It's become increasingly clear that St. Joseph's announcement that he would run as an independent should he lose on Tuesday was the dumbest of a series of really stupid tactical moves in this campaign. He seemed churlish and contemptuous of the voters within his party when he made that announcement, and his support cratered; even voters who were skeptical of Lamont now had a free pass in the primary to vote their conscience on the Iraq War, since the incumbent would still be on the ballot in November. But a rout next week will thoroughly discredit any independent run, and make it more likely that the GOP will try to find a more credible standardbearer for November, further cutting Lieberman's base. [link via Daily Kos]

From Media Matters, a new low for the Far Right (at least for this week): a LaRouchite smear against George Soros begins to worm its way into the "mainstream." And from Andrew Sullivan, a compare-and-contrast posting on partners-in-bigotry Mel Gibson and Ann Coulter:

Coulter has condemned all Muslims and all gays in ways that pander to the basest prejudices against them. She used the term "fag" on cable television recently. She has publicly argued for killing Muslims in the Middle East indiscriminately. She does all this stone-cold sober and means not a word of it. Gibson, on the other hand, clearly deep down believes that the Jews are evil, that they are responsible for all the wars in the world, and his hatred for gay men is well-documented. Both Coulter and Gibson have made a fortune catering to bigotry. But one is sincere; and one is completely cynical.

I don't know about that; is there any reason to believe Coulter's hate isn't as sincere and real as Mad Max's? I know there has been some under-the-table gossip about Coulter and a certain openly lesbian right wing talk radio hostess, but Sullivan doesn't appear to be alluding to that.

Send In The Clown: Who is the genius in the Lamont campaign who thought this association was a good idea? Was Mike Tyson not available?

Wikiality: Stephen Colbert actually did edit several pages on Wikipedia last night on his show, as he said he would.

Sugar-t**s Feminism:

Christian women — especially Catholics — know what pop culture thinks of their role: subservient; unworthy; barefoot and pregnant; seen but not heard. Consider, in contrast, the words of the current pope: "In transforming culture so that it supports life, women occupy a place, in thought and action, which is unique and decisive. It depends on them to promote a 'new feminism' which rejects the temptation of imitating models of 'male domination,' in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society, and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation." Mel Gibson gets that genius.

(snip)

...Mel Gibson's understanding of women and his articulation of their unique mission could have remarkable repercussions. This new — or old, inasmuch as it is natural and commonsensical — kind of feminism, a focus on the different contributions of men and women and the different ways they live their missions, should make us all rethink how we live and love.

- Kathryn-Jean Lopez, National Revew Online (12/2/03) [link via Andrew Sullivan]