As for anonymous gossip, you've read Glenn Greenwald's bit.

As for "attributable gossip," I give you Exhibit A: Rep. Barney Frank, on Bill Maher's television program, blandly and humorlessly calling Justice Scalia "a bigot." Without qualification, without explanation, without questioning from the host or any other guest. And, distrubingly, without audible reaction from the audience. Incredible.

Of course, there is no proof of any "bigotry" on the part of Justice Scalia. That wouldn't stop Rep. Frank from saying so, in his boomy, lispy voice. Compare, a Commenter on Salon, casually and blandly saying, "Congressman Frank is a sodomite, a buggerer, a fudge-packer." Hey, I just said it, didn't I? And, epithets aside, my statement has 100% more truth to it than Frank's calling Scalia "a bigot."

Barney Frank, you really are a filthy excuse for a human being.

I'm not "befuddled" by anything. You hate most of the ideas from my side of the aisle; and I hate most coming from your side.

Glenn Greenwald sought to characterize AIPAC and its supporters as "the most powerful" of lobbying and influence organizations. He may be right. All I pointed out is that of all such interest groups, AIPAC has an astonishing degree of bipartisan support. Surely, that is deliberate on AIPAC's part. But it is also made possible, by virtue of the fact that people like Dick Durbin and John Kyl, and everyone in between, is able to find common cause with AIPAC. Dick Durbin is not going to go to an AIPAC function just to get their donations. He goes because, as the U.S. Senator from Illinois, he knows that AIPAC aligns with a helluva lot of his constituency. And it's not like Durbin knows that it's a free ride, either. There are all sorts of far left people in Durbin's constituency. The lunatics on Chicago's city council. Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. A host of South Side nutball leftists from Obama's old neighborhood in Hyde Park. There are those two guys from the University of Chicago, Meersheim and Walt. Still, with all of that, Durbin -- the conusmmate calculating politician -- thinks it is well within his interest to make common cause with AIPAC. Ditto all the same for sombody like John Kyl, in reverse. If AIPAC weren't mainstream, representing genuine American international interests, it couldn't get the support of two such disparate vote-counters.

It's the AIPAC critics, like Glenn Greenwald, and Walt and Meersheim, and all of the far left figures that I mentioned before, who are the outliers. The AIPAC issue helps define them. They really aren't the left, when you talk about somebody like Glenn Greenwald; it is the FAR left; the anti-anti security left...

Elephantman

Thanks, Glenn, you just helped define "the mainstream," as well as "the blame-America-first far left."

Translation: I'm Elephantman and the political party to which I devote my allegiance and after which I name myself is a tiny, discredited, marginalized, hated hump of a regional party. It has been slaughtered in two straight national elections. It's hard to recall a time in recent history when a political party was as shrunken and irrelevant as the one I love. The politicians who think like I do have been thrown out of office en masse. The President I supported is probably the single most unpopular -- despised -- President of the modern era.

But I'm the mainstream and those who disagree with me are fringe!!!!

Keep telling yourself that and maybe you'll believe it. I think it'll help if you click your ruby slippers together three times as you say it.

-- GlennGreenwald

No -- I simply say that you've proven how "mainstream" AIPAC is; and all that I rely on is what you've already (correctly) reported; AIPAC is broadly, widely supported by a bipartisan and mostly cross-ideological majority of Congress. You said it yourself!

Here's another way to look at it; if all of the Members of Congress who support AIPAC tomorrow supported a Congressional inquiry into the so-called "torture" memos, you'd call that group something like "a respected, bipartisan, and overwhelming majority of Congress." But since that same group has the temerity to support the defense of Israel, you feel compelled to say that they've been bought off.

I know that you and the far left despise AIPAC. Your fellow-travelers in hating all things AIPAC is notable; Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe, Hamas, Hizbollah, Ahmadinejad... charming.

~ What makes Glenn Greenwald think that this prosucution could have been dignified as being fomented by "the Bush DOJ"? We know what is going on at most of Justice; the DOJ careerists are Salon Premium members, I expect. That's in addition to their ACLU and MoveOn.org memberships.

~And who is it that is "demonizing AIPAC"? Well, clearly not Dick Durbin or John Kyl, to pick to of the most disparate ends of Washington politics. Mainstream Washington politics, on a bipartisan basis, recognizes the special nature of the U.S.-Israel alliance. That's why it's called "mainstream." That's why you get Durbin and Kyl in agreement. But clearly we know where to find "demonization" of AIPAC. Why, right here at Salon, of course! And at the New York Times, and NPR, the Nation, and a host of other far-left news outlets. And that is why there is nothing "mainstream" about Salon, or FireDogLake, or KosFiles, or the other aforementioned "news" sources.

Thanks, Glenn, you just helped define "the mainstream," as well as "the blame-America-first far left."