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  • Liquid Explosives and Solid Lies

    Bush and his Homeland Security chief remind us constantly that they are doing all they can to protect Americans from the perils of terrorism. As the November elections draw near, we will hear a steady rise in the drumbeat of this claim. They justify wars, suspension of civil liberties and draconian measures at airports by exploiting our fears.  After all, global terrorism is a real danger. But are Bush’s security measures really designed to make us safe?  Time and again we have discovered that the Bush administration talks the tough talk but when it comes to funding real and effective measures for security, it doesn’t walk the walk.

    It has been revealed that the administration tried to divert funds from the HSD’s bomb detection technology program. Anti-terror funds were slashed for New York City and Washington D.C  while cities like Omaha, Jersey City, Fort Lauderdale, Louisville, KY and states like Indiana, Wyoming and North Dakota had their funding increased many times. After the recent news of the terrorist plot to blow up airplanes using liquid explosives, we can no longer carry beverages, shampoo or toothpaste in our carry-on luggage during air travel.  The explanation given for this extremely alarmist step has been that the technology to detect liquid explosives is not available and it is too expensive. But guess what, like many other untruths told by the deceiptful Bush administration, this assertion too is a bluff. The technology exists and it is already in use – in the White House! Bush and his friends in the HSD just didn’t bother to tell us. They are spending billions for a disastrous war but don’t want to spend the money to protect ordinary citizens at home who must be subjected to increasing levels of indignities and  inconveniences. I wonder why. Could it be that keeping people perpetually nervous, stressed out and insecure, makes it easier to control and manipulate them for political gains?

    The technology exists to detect liquid explosives — at least three Massachusetts companies have created such tools — but the federal government says it’s still not ready to deploy the devices in the nation’s airports.

    The Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency in charge of airport security, is testing products from American Science and Engineering Inc. of Billerica; Ahura Corp. of Wilmington; and General Dielectric Inc. of Acton.

    AS&E’s SmartCheck system uses low-powered X-rays to scan passengers for hidden items like bottles of liquid, while Ahura and General Dielectric use lasers or microwaves respectively, to identify the contents of a sealed bottle. The TSA is also testing seven other devices made by companies in the United States, the United Kingdom , and Japan. But TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa says that none are ready to be deployed because of reliability and feasibility issues.

    But after this month’s foiled terrorist plot to smuggle liquid explosives aboard jumbo jets, the government may not have the luxury to wait. Charles Slepian , founder of the Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center, a transportation security firm in New York, said that technology for detecting explosives in carry-on bags is well understood and readily available, but the US Department of Homeland Security is reluctant to spend the large sums needed to deploy it at hundreds of airports.

    "Now they’re embarrassed because they have to say that we have nothing in place," said Slepian. "Shame on us. We’ve had the science for years."

    Since the early 1990s, AS&E has made SmartCheck, a $50,000 low-intensity X-ray scanner that can spot a bottle of organic compounds in a passenger’s pocket.

    But is the liquid an explosive, or a batch of baby formula? Ahura says its $30,000 handheld laser scanner, the First Defender, can answer the question. The device can "see" through glass or plastic bottles and identify any of 2,500 different chemical compounds in about 15 seconds. The FBI and New York City police already use the Ahura system, which went on sale about a year ago.

    Joe Reiss , AS&E’s vice president of marketing, said his company’s SmartCheck systems are used at the White House and the US Supreme Court. But they’re not widely used in airport security. TSA agreed last year to conduct tests of the system. But Reiss said those tests had not yet begun.

    TSA spokeswoman Kudwa said the agency has been evaluating the First Defender system in US airports since October, along with the General Dielectric system, but the devices have not always proven reliable. "We are seeing high false alarm rates for the solutions we are testing right now," she said.

    Ahura spokeswoman Kerstin Barr said First Defender has an accuracy rate of about 95 percent."

    The money that has been wasted to fund useless anti-terror measures in low risk cities in Nebraska, Wyoming, Indiana, Kentucky and North Dakota, could have gone towards the purchase of liquid scanning devices for most major airports. Instead we now must surrender our make-up, Gatorade and toothpaste like so many sheep. George Bush’s hind-quarters on the other hand, are perfectly protected by the latest technology which has been ready and available for quite some time.

    Note: Thanks to my co-blogger Sujatha for pointing out this disturbing story and providing the link.

  • Make It An Even Dozen

    Planets_1 (Click for enlargement)

    The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has redefined what constitutes a planet.  Based on that definition, a panel of astronomers, writers and historians has suggested adding three more to the current number of planets in our solar system, bringin up the total from 9 to 12.  It is possible that more may be added to the lineup.  The panel’s recommendations will be presented at a meeting of the IAU in Prague. The Union’s general assembly is expected to formally vote on the recommendation next week.

    If approved, the new additions would be: Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt that  inhabits the space between Mars and Jupiter; Charon, once considered Pluto’s (which has long had its own problems with identity among the elite group of planets) moon will now become its companion in a "double planet" system;  and an as-yet-unnamed object, larger-than-Pluto and far beyond the orbit of all the other planets , with the unwieldy label of 2003 UB313 which was discovered by Cal Tech astronomer, Michael Brown and his colleagues in 2003 who tentatively named it Xena.

    For the first time since 1930 when Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, school children all over the world will have to learn new names of planets and more material will be needed for designing all those planetary system models for the science fair.  Under the newly defined system,   Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — will be characterized as "classical planets." Ceres, Pluto, Charon and the unnamed planet will become "dwarfs," –  planets smaller than Mercury, which has a diameter of about 3,000 miles. 

    This is so cool – revisiting and renaming heavenly bodies. It is like a breath of fresh air in the midst of the putrid smell of war, terrorism, unrest, unease and name calling by slimy politicians.  Broadening the horizons of human knowledge and expanding our consciousness of the universe by inquisitive visionaries, as opposed to the fast shrinking humanity and myopic visions of small minded political leaders.

    There is just one small problem.  For years, American school kids have memorized the the following handy mnemonic "My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" to remember the planetary order from the sun.  Now with the introduction of one "C" between Mars and Jupiter, another after (or before?) Pluto, and possibly an "X" at the end, can any one suggest a new aid to memory?  Readers?

    Here is an article from the Scientfic American.

    The original definition of planet is wanderer, from the Greeks who watched these bright lights wander through the firmament of fixed stars. Observers discerned nine of these travelers over the course of human history, the last being Pluto in 1930. But recent discoveries of more objects orbiting the sun, both bigger than Pluto and similarly rounded in shape, called into question the arbitrary limit of nine, with some proposing that Pluto did not merit its planetary status. Now the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has crafted a new definition for what constitutes a planet that would expand the solar system to Pluto and beyond, encompassing 12 bodies in all.

    The new proposed definition of a planet is: a celestial body with sufficient mass to assume a nearly spherical shape that orbits a star without being another star or a satellite of another planet. By this definition, the list of planets in order from the sun now reads: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto-Charon (considered a double-planet system) and the newly discovered and officially unnamed 2003 UB313, otherwise known as Xena. The committee also proposed a new category of planets, called plutons, be applied to those bodies that, like Pluto, both take longer than 200 Earth years to revolve around the sun and have eccentric orbits outside the typical orbital plane.

  • YouTube Keeping the Boobs on the Small Screen and off the Public Stage (Anna)

    It looks like Senator George Allen (R-VA), who has his eye on the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, may have sunk his chances in the national arena by singling out and belittling a South Asian man, the only person of color in the audience, at a campaign rally in southwestern Virgina. Is it any wonder our foreign policy is such a mess, when this is who we have serving on our Senate foreign relations committee? I find it telling that, immediately after publicly humiliating S.R. Sidarth, Allen segues to "We’re in the midst of a war on terror." I guess brown people can can serve as useful visual props for the particularly slow pitchfork wielders.  Slate’s John Dickerson, who skews, like many of Slate’s political correspondents, toward the New Republic/DNC conservative side of the Democratic spectrum, oddly seems to spin an almost sympathetic take on Allen’s situation, using it as an example of the difficulty candidates have contending with the ease of capturing and disseminating their most awkward moments through internet video. Personally, I fail to see this as anything but a heartening sign that wink-wink, local prejudice baiting politics may become increasingly hard to pull off in a YouTube age.

  • Pas de deux – Pakistan and Terrorism

    A few months ago, I had described Pakistan’s sinister role in global terrorism using another dance analogy. Nothing much has changed since then in the continuing Danse Macabre and Pakistan’s role as its major choreographer.

    The recent bust of the British terrorism plot of blowing up airplanes using liquid explosives was facilitated by the cooperation of the Pakistani government.  So that makes Pakistan a good guy in the war on terrorism, right?  Not quite. The answer is not so simple. It appears that Pakistan has decided to play a complex, dual role in the world theater against terrorism. Pakistan hopes to inoculate itself against the wrath of the west by catching those who wish to harm the US and Europe, thereby gaining the accolades necessary to keep all attention averted from what it wishes to do in its own neighborhood. Especially when it comes to its historical enemy, India.  The recent bomb blasts on trains in Mumbai and the unconfirmed rumor about a possible attack during India’s upcoming Independence Day celebrations, all point to miscreants crossing the border from Pakistan or local terrorists recruited by them. Until the long festering problem of Kashmir is solved to Pakistan’s satisfaction, instead of a costly full blown war, a sustained psychological warfare with India, involving frequent terrorist attacks may be the method of choice and convenience. The government of Pakistan can thus retain public deniability while India continues to pay a high price in terms of human lives and damage to infrastructure and public confidence. 

    I hope that the Indian government realizes that it is on its own when it comes to terrorism within its borders. No matter that the US and India are cozying up to each other for mutually beneficial economic deals. When it comes to national security matters, real politik will decide how much help to expect from western allies.  As long as Musharraf helps catch some Al Qaida big fish for the benefit of the US and Europe, western nations will more than likely turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to India’s problems with Islamic terrorism.  It is in India’s own interest to develop good relations with Muslim countries, especially old allies like Iran. Better still, it must find a way to make peace with Pakistan at long last. It may be less exciting to mend fences with old enemies than to build bridges with new friends, especially those fueled by the glittery allure of free market and economic boom. But boring may triumph over glamorous when it comes to ending terrorism. Until then, India, like the US and Israel, must live in fear and look over its shoulder at every street corner, train station and airport.   Here is a chilling story about Pakistan’s dangerous penchant for playing both sides of the field.

    Focus on Pakistan shows it as enemy of, haven to terrorism
    Al-Qaida leaders have been caught, but other groups often are tolerated

    "The trail of evidence in the British terrorism investigation is leading to an uncomfortable question for the Bush administration: Is Pakistan — rather than Iraq, Afghanistan or some other country — the central front in the war on terrorism?

    The conspiracy described by British and American authorities serves as a reminder that one of the administration’s leading allies in the region is also host to some of its worst enemies. It also is igniting a debate on whether the Bush administration’s effort to support Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has done enough to stem Islamic radicalism in a country whose citizens are among the most strongly anti-American of any in the world.

    Pakistan announced Friday that it had detained several suspects this week, including a British national considered an important figure in the alleged British plot. U.S. and British investigators say that some of the 24 arrested in Britain, most of them British citizens of Pakistani descent, may have had ties to radical fundamentalist groups in Pakistan. Similarly, militants who attacked the London transport system last year had ties to Pakistani groups.

    While Musharraf has helped the Bush administration fight some terrorist organizations in his country, he has done little to halt others, or bring to justice the government officials who support them. Yet the Bush administration, already pressing Musharraf for help on a number of fronts, fears that pushing the weak leader of an unstable, nuclear-armed government too far could make matters worse.

    President Bush, who has called Musharraf a "man of courage," has given the Pakistani leader billions of dollars in aid, offered critical political support and approved the sale of such advanced weapons as F-16 fighter planes.

    In return, U.S. officials have been given many investigative leads on terrorism suspects, including members of al-Qaida. Americans also have received help on the Afghan border and pledges to halt nuclear proliferation activities.  Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Ramzi Binalshibh, who managed the attack; and Abu Zubeida, al-Qaida’s one-time operations director, all were captured in Pakistan.  U.S. and British authorities have strongly praised the Pakistani authorities, who arrested as many as 17 suspects, for their help in the alleged plot.

    But Musharraf has balked at other U.S. requests, denying access, for example, to Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan, who as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program was a key figure in the spread of nuclear know-how around the world.

    Most damaging, while Musharraf has gone after terrorist groups he believes may threaten his government, he has resisted efforts to crack down on other organizations that he believes serve Pakistan’s interests against rival India, or have substantial domestic support. He has not been seen as energetic in helping U.S. forces find Taliban fighters in border regions, and has refused to go after groups that support the insurgency in the disputed, territory of Kashmir.

    While some of these groups may appear distinct from al-Qaida, many share a web of contacts, Abbas said. Musharraf "tries to differentiate between the two kinds of groups, but you can’t," he said.

  • Root of All Evil – Then and Now

    Totalitarian vocabulary does not evolve much with time – be it from the left or the right. Especially  when it comes to angry catch phrases and code words to describe enemies of the "cause." A while ago readers were asked to try and tell Hitler and Ann Coulter apart.  Now another conservative commentator points fingers and complains about Sen Lieberman’s recent electoral defeat using rhetoric that is an eerie echo of a similar lament from the past.

  • You’ve Got Mail… And Your Medication

    Remember when in its zeal to catch domestic terrorists, George Bush and Tom Ridge’s incompetent but draconian Homeland Security Department had toyed with the idea of enlisting the mailman, the UPS delivery person and the gas meter reader to spy on US citizens and report suspicious activity?  Fortunately, that ridiculously intrusive plan for "friendly, neighborhood spying" did not gain any traction.

    Reuters News reports that the government of one Indian state is using the local mail delivery person for a more useful civic activity.  Apart from distributing mail to villagers, the postman also brings them anti- malaria drugs to combat a recent spike in the malarial activity in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.  The WHO approves of such innovative approach to disease control.

    Indian postmen deliver mail, also fight malaria

    "KOLKATA, India (Reuters) – Hundreds of postmen in India’s Jharkhand state are delivering anti-malaria medicine along with letters to combat a spike in malarial deaths in the east part of the country, a senior official said on Friday.

    "The postmen travels everyday to otherwise inaccessible territories and knows almost everybody and they seem to be our best bet to beat malaria," Shivendu, the health secretary of Jharkhand, who uses one name, told Reuters.

    "We have trained them to carry bottles of chloroquine and other medicines like pills and distribute them to hundreds of villagers and report back to us," he said by telephone from Ranchi, Jharkhand’s capital.

    The postmen will not only give medicines to people suffering from fever but also monitor health in remote malaria-affected areas by filling up questionnaires during mail runs. …

    "The Jharkhand government’s ways are indeed novel and can be adopted by other states for good results," said Prabhakar Chatterjee, a senior World Health Organization official."

  • Beyond The Celestial Belt: Such A Long Journey

    Here are two stories about a couple of pioneers of astronomy, physics and space exploration – Clyde Tombaugh and James Van Allen, and their amazing journeys through life and death.

    Tombaugh Clyde Tombaugh

    WASHINGTON – In articles about his life, they always called Clyde Tombaugh "a Kansas farm boy," as if to draw sharp contrast with the cosmic magnitude of his signature achievement.  Discovering a planet, after all, is a rare distinction, and Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930, is the only American to discover one of the nine named planets in our solar system.

    His story sounds too all-American storybook to be true, as though Frank Capra and Horatio Alger somehow conspired to come up with the unlikely tale. When he discovered Pluto, Tombaugh lacked a college education, having taught himself the fundamentals of astronomy on the family farm north of Burdett, Kan. Endless hours in the fields imbued Tombaugh with a love of the stars. The sky just looks bigger, more intense out there with nothing to block it, said Tombaugh’s daughter, Annette Tombaugh-Sitze. ….

    Tombaugh-Sitze said questions about whether Pluto merited the status of a planet always bothered her father. But she’s sure he’s having the last laugh: His ashes are aboard a research spaceship hurtling toward a 2015 encounter with Pluto, his majestic discovery, whatever it is.

    "Dad’s on a great adventure," she said."

    ______________________________________________________________________________

    James Van Allen080906vanallen1

    IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – Physicist James A. Van Allen, a leader in space exploration who discovered the radiation belts surrounding the Earth that now bear his name, died Wednesday [Aug 9, 2006]. He was 91.

    The University of Iowa, where he taught for years, announced the death in a statement on its Web site.

    In a career that stretched over more than a half-century, Van Allen designed scientific instruments for dozens of research flights, first with small rockets and balloons, and eventually with space probes that traveled to distant planets and beyond.

    Van Allen gained global attention in the late 1950s when instruments he designed and placed aboard the first U.S. satellite, Explorer I, discovered the bands of intense radiation that surround the earth, now known as the Van Allen Belts.

    The bands spawned a whole new field of research known as magnetospheric physics, an area of study that now involves more than 1,000 investigators in more than 20 countries.

    The discovery also propelled the United States in its space exploration race with the Soviet Union and prompted Time magazine to put Van Allen on the cover of its May 4, 1959, issue.

    The folksy, pipe-smoking scientist, called “Van” by friends, retired from full-time teaching in 1985. But he continued to write, oversee research, counsel students and monitor data gathered by satellites. He worked in a large, cluttered corner office on the seventh floor of the physics and astronomy building that bears his name.

    "Jim Van Allen was a good friend of our family. His loss saddens Christie and me,” Gov. Tom Vilsack said. "His passing is a sad day for science in America and the world.

    Though he was an early advocate of a concerted national space program, Van Allen was a strong critic of most manned space projects, once dismissing the U.S. proposal for a manned space station "speculative and … poorly founded.”

    In 2004, he spoke out again, arguing against Bush administration plans for a space station on the moon and a manned mission to Mars.

    "I’m one of the most durable and fervent advocates of space exploration, but my take is that we could do it robotically at far less cost and far greater quantity and quality of results,” he said.

    I’ll end with an amusing anecdote as related by Bengali author, Sunil Ganguly (aka Sunil Gangopadhyay) in his reminiscence, Ardhek Jiban (Half A Life) that I read some years ago.  As a budding young author, Ganguly lived in Iowa City and attended the famous Writers’ Workshop of the University of Iowa. One day, he was to attend a university banquet and while getting ready for the event, discovered that he couldn’t find the one and only belt he possessed. When his host, a professor at UI came to pick him up, Ganguly explained his problem. The professor said that he had to pick up another professor from his home on the way to the banquet and perhaps Ganguly would be able to borrow a belt there.  That professor whom they went to pick up next was James Van Allen – who lent Ganguly one of his own belts.  The author joked in his book that he therefore earned the bragging rights to have actually worn one of Van Allen’s Belts.

  • Terra, terra, terra! (Sujatha)

    Keith Olbermann (Countdown, MSNBC)always points out the timing of these ‘terra alerts’ and while the timing of the announcement seems suspicious (from the Bush admin viewpoint, highly convenient) I think it is a genuine plot foiled. The MSM is just making hay while the sun shines, since ‘terra’ makes for great ratings, gives them something else to focus on other than (1) War in Iraq/body bags and coffins (2) War in Lebanon/body bags and coffins (3) Lamont’s win over Lieberman. Fits in sooo perfectly with the admin’s aims!

    Disaffected young Asian-Brits, or for that matter, newly-minted true-Brit converts to Islam who turn terrorist ( prime example, Richard Reid a.k.a. the Shoe Bomber) are not new, they’ve been around UK for some time now. For the conspiracy theory minded out there, all the 19 named characters whose assets have been frozen by the Bank of England could very well have been picked from the unemployed list and promised a nice sum for acting the roles of plotters. Will they have a public trial of all these suspects, or will they be whisked out of sight? We’ll just have to wait and see if they disappear down the memory hole.

    Ooops…I’m not so sure if the plot was genuine now. See how the mind behaves like a monkey, jumping from this branch to another and another! I just have to suggest a conspiracy theory option to start wondering over something I just believed was genuine in the earlier paragraph.

    I wonder why the authorities have to make airtravelers’ lives miserable the way they’re doing. Hopefully, the security agencies will find a way to check all carry-on fluids/gels without inconveniencing the travelers and this rule goes away. Or perhaps the airtravelers will have to speak with their pocketbooks. Or the ‘terrists’ will find a way to create havoc from a combination of bodily fluids and innocuous permitted items, so the authorities will simply insist on travelers flying in the nude after sterilizing and pasteurizing the body to prevent biological agents.
    There are already oodles of bad jokes out there regarding what would be the next thing to ban on the flights."Ladies, hand over your lipsticks and moisturizers, and no one will be hurt!"

    A few links for your edification:

    Bush administration tried to quietly divert money from bomb detection schemes

    Earlier strange incident regarding American Airlines 109 forced back to Heathrow on Aug 6

    Even stranger report regarding real(?) reason for above incident

    Bojinka- was this the playbook that the ‘plotters’ were trying to follow?

    (Update: Added link to transcript of Countdown. Thanks for the link, Ruchira!)

  • A Tale of Two Primaries

    In the run up to the November 2006 elections, two state primaries caught the attention of the nation.  One Democrat, one Republican – both involving influential politicians. One lost, the other won. The not wholly unexpected outcomes of the two elections were made more noteworthy for the subsequent unseemly behavior of both politicians.

    Tom DeLay, the formidable congressman from the 22nd Congressional District of Texas handily won the Republican primary of his district and then announced his plans to resign from US Congress.  In what later proved to be an illegal move, the Texas Republican Party tried to put a substitute nominee in DeLay’s place on the ticket without any input from voters. The whole maneuver looked like a set up with many Republicans grumbling that DeLay wanted to put his own puppet in his place so he could continue to pull strings in a district which he would no longer represent!  Things were quite murky for a while with court challenges and decisions coming down hard and fast. At last, we are at the end of the trail and DeLay is out of his bag of dirty tricks. Now there is a fair chance that this heavily Republican Texas seat will end up on the Democratic side of the aisle in November. I live in DeLay’s district – I am delighted at his departure at long last. Hopefully, the impressive Democratic nominee, Congressman Nick Lampson will be elected and restore honor and decency in the politics of my district and in the US Congress. About the inglorious end to DeLay’s long and powerful political career, Out Like a Lamb, says the Houston Chronicle. This is one debacle that the arrogant Hammer cannot blame on Democrats – it was all his own making.

    "…During his two-decade climb to the powerful position of House majority leader, Sugar Land’s Tom DeLay fashioned a reputation as a combative and controlling legislator who used party loyalty and the cash clout of his political action committees to bend his Republican colleagues to his will.

    Thus his decision this week to take his name off the ballot — almost certainly surrendering the seat to Democrat Nick Lampson — is a conclusion to his congressional career that no one could have anticipated. Like a schoolyard bully, DeLay’s bravado fell apart when confronted by authority.

    … When he resigned from Congress, DeLay said he did not wish to be the focus of Democratic attempts to portray him as the embodiment of all that was wrong with Congress. DeLay had given his opponents plenty to work with. It was DeLay who promoted the "K Street strategy" that used lobbyists and their money to forward his pro-business agenda. It was DeLay and his aides who allied themselves with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who really does embody the worst aspects of congressional politics.

    DeLay watched from the sidelines as the Texas GOP unsuccessfully tried to replace him on the ballot. In a lawsuit filed by Democratic Party officials, a federal appeals court ruled that the GOP could not name a replacement candidate; Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to review the judgment.

    DeLay then pulled the plug on his candidacy, ostensibly to clear the way for a futile write-in campaign.  "To do anything else would be hypocrisy," the former congressman said in a non sequitur that displayed his disdain for his onetime constituents.

    Whatever his reasons for cutting and running, Tom DeLay will never again be seen in the same light by either friends or foes. As a constituent labeled DeLay in a letter to the Chronicle, it seems "The Hammer" has become "The Quitter."

    The other primary of course was last Tuesday in which Senator Joseph Lieberman, the conservative Democrat of Connecticut lost to newbie challenger, Ned Lamont in an upset that was not really an upset.  The writing was on the wall for Lieberman ever since Bush bussed him on the cheek after the 2005 State of the Union address and Lieberman became marked as Bush’s "best friend and enabler" in matters concerning war and peace, especially the wrongheaded Iraq war. Speak of the kiss of death! And the fact that Lieberman did not accept his defeat at the polls gracefully and has defiantly decided to run as an Independent, proves once and for all that he had long stopped caring for his party and was following his own selfish agenda.

    "Six years ago, Sen. Joseph Lieberman was the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee. Tuesday, a majority of Democratic voters in his home state of Connecticut turned him out in favor of a political newcomer. If the national party was wondering how important an issue the war in Iraq would play with voters, Lieberman’s loss provides a lesson Democrats can’t ignore.

    The contest between three-term Sen. Lieberman and Ned Lamont, a political novice who failed in a bid for state Senate in 1990, played out in the national media as a referendum on the war and Lieberman’s continuing support of it and President Bush. Much was made of the fact that when many Democrats began backing away from the war last year, Lieberman wrote an essay for the Wall Street Journal chiding Democrats for criticizing "how President Bush took America into the war."

    It’s tempting to conclude that Lieberman’s war stance was his undoing and that other Democratic contenders had better take heed. But the story is more complicated than simple Democratic desertion over Iraq. Lieberman votes with Senate Democrats 90 percent of the time, but his constituents tended to notice that his public statements revealed strong Republican sympathies."