is not that Lieberman is a complete Middle East hawk, and embarrassingly close to Christian evangelicals who only love Jews and Israel as a means to an end. This we have known for a long time now.

It's that Lieberman, a most literate and educated man, would let the phrase "Eesh Elo Kim" go out under his letterhead. (It's "Elokim" - one word.)

Sorry for the nitpicking, but this nit was too big to ignore.

I agree. That's the most disturbing part of the whole thing. Sorry for not highlighting it.

For Likudniks like Lieberman, the Rapture Right are "useful idiots" simply to be exploited to further the political ends of the most radical fringe of the Israeli -- and American -- political spectrum.

How far up the American political power structure this idiocy goes is a mystery. The neocons (Strauss, et al) have always cynically utilized religion as a means of manipulating the ignorant masses. But while the president's actual belief in this nonsense may be questionable, there's no doubt Bush has packed the government and military high command with Rapturists who are eager for Armageddon.

You've gone and mentioned Israel, Joe Lieberman, The Rapture and gays in New Orleans all in the same article.

Expect your own personal Armageddon to start ringing the phone off the hook any second.

Time Magazine's Joe Klein on Joe Lieberman:

“I could never imagine myself voting against him. But he was profoundly wrong about the most important issue of the past five years.”

No comment from me is necessary, that statement sums it up all too well.

http://thehill.com/josh-marshall/its-all-but-over-for-lieberman-in-connecticut-2006-02-16.html

Of all that there is out there to be outraged and concerned about, Joe lieberman has long been at the top of my list of dangerous, destructive forces to be concerned about on the national stage. But, gawdallmighty! I have underestimated just how dangerous this man truly is to America.

Religion is simply politics seasoned with the extra confidence that comes from thinking that the Creator of the Universe has your back.

What makes things all the more confusing is the fact that most people beleive that there is, at most, one God but as we all know theres more than one set of instructions.

Add to that the fact that the set of instructions Christians believe specifically states that we should love our enemies and respond to evil with kindness and one is forced to a singled inescapable conclusion. These people are WHACKED!

As a resident of Connecticut, this is no surprise to me. Lieberman has been an enthusiastic supporter of President Bush and has been dismissed by his own party in the 2006 elections. So much so that they threw him out in a primary election that had registered 15,000 new voters and 15,000 people who switched their affiliation to vote in the primary. These statistics are available through the Secretary of State's office in Hartford, CT. The numbers are rough. It is no surprise that Lieberman is a Republican is Democratic clothing. Had the Republican party been "alive" in CT with a viable Senatorial candidate, Lieberman would not be where he is today. The 2006 Senatorial election was the only election where he really had an opponent. CT voters and Democrats in particular, are not going to forget his actions as a spoiler and will not welcome him back into the fold. He may have to run as an Independent again, if he runs in 2012. His stance on the war is wearing very thing in his own home state. He has also lost a great amount of respect among Democratic leaders over his support of the Iraq war.

"Mike Gravel and Ron Paul are total wackos. And Iran is led by aggressive religious fanatics. And Tim Russert and Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman are very serious and responsible and wise."

And that is why we will be at war with Iran before Bush leaves/is thrown out of office.

As a resident of Connecticut, this is no surprise to me.--CPerkins

I for one - and probably most of us here - am and was well aware of what you posted about Lieberman. I fought tooth and nail from afar through sites such as FDL to see to it that Lieberman would be defeated. What happened after he won. He was awarded with a standing ovation by the vast majority of the Democratic Senators. Disgusting and disturbing writ large.

When will the residents of Connecticut finally realize that Joe Lieberman is the senator from Israel, not Connecticut. If he was forced to choose between a nuclear bomb hitting Connecticut and a nuclear bomb hitting Israel, he would let it destroy Connecticut.

As parochial, exclusionary, and yes, racist as they often were, the southern preachers of my youth also preached peace, self-reliance, steadfastness in the right whether the cameras were rolling or not, and above all, charity.

The Jews I knew didn't all carry violins, and weren't all doctors and lawyers, but they believed in universal education, fair pay for working men, justice for all citizens, and duty to the community. They built hospitals, libraries, and academies or music and art, supported and were even martyred in the cause of civil rights and of labor, and taught me things no one else could or would teach me at the time.

How did John Hagee and Joseph Lieberman come to represent these two traditions? The answer is that they don't. The hell they're from is real enough, yet a fair analysis of how its gates happen to be open as wide as they are in the present day is, whether we like it or not, an indictment of us all.

Thanks again, Glenn, for trying to shine a bit of light on what we're actually being asked to sanctify.

If Al Gore hadn't been so completely incapable of dealing with Clinton having an affair with someone the age of his (Gore's) daughters, then we wouldn't have had to campaign for Lieberman in 2000. I hated doing that. I didn't want a religious nut-case like that anywhere near the White House. I'm not sure he isn't worse than Bush. If only Gore had picked Edwardson...