Lieberman-Lamont Goes Through the Looking Glass

Is the Joe Lieberman - Ned Lamont primary really going to end at 8 pm today? Or, if Lamont wins, is Lieberman going to stick to his pledge to run as an independent and keep his Senate seat? It's hard to see either side (especially Lieberman's) in the conflict surviving with brain cells and dignity left intact. From just the last 24 hours:

- Lieberman's camp accuses Lamont's of "hacking" the Joe 2006 website, even though a screenshot of the troubled page shows it suffered a fairly normal traffic overload error.
- Lamont-backing blogs scan Lieberman's schedule and see he has no public events on Monday afternoon, so they do recon in Stamford and try to analyze the contents of a black car flanked by Secret Service agents. Has Hillary Clinton come to stump for Joe? Has Russ Feingold? Actually, it was John Boehner stumping for Rep. Chris Shays. But there were Lieberman signs in the area!
- Bill Kristol, one among many pundits who wonder why Democrats would want to turn out a diehard backer of the super-popular-successful Iraq invasion, lets out this howler: "What drives so many Democrats crazy about Lieberman is not simply his support for the Iraq war. It's that he's unashamedly pro-American."

It's going to stay like this until the polls close, and possibly after. Jeff A. Taylor has the analysis to read as you go about your day and ignore the Connecticut hysteria.

Comments

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Politics is sport by other means. In other words, anyone who believes nominating Lamont today will have any significant difference in this country's policy is hopelessly naive.

That said, Lieberman is an insufferable, pompous fool, and it'd be pretty neat to see him sent packing. So vote Lamont!

[Bubba Zanetti]

In terms of pure tactics, Lamont's victory is a wash between the two parties. The Dems' defeat of the Lieberman-as-Bush "morph" will be a successful rallying cry for Dems in the fall.

However, Martin Peretz made a valid point yesterday in the WSJ that Lamont's victory makes the "weak on terror" card more potent for the GOP.

[thoreau]

All I know is that Colbert had Lamont on, and issued a standing invitation to Lieberman. Lieberman has yet to show up. When he does, there's a comfy chair and box of Coco Puffs waiting for him.

[John]

Lanni Davis is on opinion journal today talking about how generally nasty the nutroots people are and how he would have never believed that the left could be so anti-semetic, nasty and intolerant. He says

"One Sunday morning on C-Span I debated Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel on the Lieberman versus Lamont race. Afterwards I received a series of emails--many of them in ALL CAPS (which often suggests the hyper-frenetic state of these extremist haters)--that were of the same stripe as the blog posts, and filled with the same level of personal hate.

But the issue is not just emotional outbursts by these usually anonymous bloggers. A friend of mine just returned from Connecticut, where he had spoken on several occasions on behalf of Joe Lieberman. He happens to be a liberal antiwar Democrat, just as I am. He is also a lawyer. He told me that within a day of a Lamont event--where he asked the candidate some critical questions--some of his clients were blitzed with emails attacking him and threatening boycotts of their products if they did not drop him as their attorney. He has actually decided not to return to Connecticut for the primary today; he is fearful for his physical safety."

While he is careful not to blame this garbage on Lamont (quite fairly so I think), he thinks Lamont ought to denounce them. Fat Chance.

I wonder if Lanny will now be ordered to leave the Democratic Party and branded a member of the vast neocon conspiracy for these remarks?

One point, wouldn't a DNS attack make Liberman's website appear as if "it suffered a fairly normal traffic overload error"? I am not a hacker, but I think Lieberman's claim probably deserves more investigation than such a blithe dismissal. But, I guess it is all part of the anti-war fever and the new love affair between Reason and the Kosites that seems to be happening these days

[R C Dean]

The Dems' defeat of the Lieberman-as-Bush "morph" will be a successful rallying cry for Dems in the fall.

It may show that the Dems have a litmus test on support for the war, but I'm not sure that means the general electorate does.

[sage +P]

Colbert went easy on Lamont. Didn't ask about gay marriage, didn't ask about immigration. He did say (correctly) that Lamont is a tax-n-spender, but no bombshell there.

On a semi-related note, what is with the voters' fetish of putting the elderly in the Senate? Lieberman looks like he stepped out of the grave to take a piss.

[Morat20]

Ah, that's what I love about the internet. It's the fact that accountability goes away for [i]everyone[/i].

Used to be, if you got a letter in the mail that you felt threatened your physical safety, you'd turn it over to the police. But with email? Heavens no! And you certainly don't publish it in it's entirety (complete with headers) -- you just talk about how all the Mean Folk on The Other Side send you pages of badly mispelled, all-caps, death threats.

Which you quote from extensively -- but don't report to the police, don't post headers that would allow knowledgeable people to help track down the writer of the email, or do [i]anything[/i] to make anyone feel you actually feel threatened.

I suspect 95% of those talking about all the nasty emails are merely playing the victim, spinning a handful (if that!) emails into proof that their opponent and his supporters are deluded and insane.

Politics as usual, really.

[John]

Morat20,

It may be true that Davis is lying or exagerating. I haven't read his in box. Have you ever read the threads at KOS or Democratic Underground? There is a lot of nasty stuff over there. I have never seen anything on Hit and Run that even compares. I like to poke people like Joe and Jennifer in the eye, but they are pretty reasonable people at heart. A lot of folks at Kos and DU and Huffington don't seem to be very reasonable. It makes Davis' story at least believable.

[Ian]

One point, wouldn't a DNS attack make Liberman's website appear as if "it suffered a fairly normal traffic overload error"?

What is a "DNS attack"?

I am not a hacker,

Clearly.

[Bubba Zanetti]

RC, point taken, but a Dem base that gets a super-motivated from a Lamont victory and wants to get Bush via proxy (i.e., by repudiating him with taking the House at least) means higher turnout, and there seems to be a lot of conservatives with a libertarian streak that are fed-up. That is, fed up with Bush's abandonment of small gov't conservatism.

A precarious equation for the GOP in the fall.

[John]

Ian,

A DNS attack or denial of service attack is when you have a bunch of computers all try to access a website at the same time so that its server is completely overloaded and shuts down. It is a crude but highly effective way of shutting down a website.

[Ian]

A DNS attack or denial of service attack is when you have a bunch of computers all try to access a website at the same time so that its server is completely overloaded and shuts down. It is a crude but highly effective way of shutting down a website.

I'm perfectly aware of what a DDoS attack is. I am also perfectly aware of what a DNS attack is. They are not the same. DDoS attacks target specific servers or clusters of servers. DNS attacks target root servers. That clearly isn't the problem here.

I suppose it's possible that Lieberman's website was hit by a DDoS attack, but I'd say that it's improbable. If so, his hosting company's connections would be completely saturated and other sites hosted by them would also be inaccessible.

Personally, I'd bet that they used more bandwidth than was budgeted for and their hosting company cut them off.

[Jon H]

Given the tactics of Lieberman supporters, I wouldn't be surprised if they DOS'd it themselves in order to blame it on Lamont.

[Jon H]

Lanny Davis' "friend" is probably the DC lobbyist who was obnoxiously disrupting Lamont events.

[Morat20]

It may be true that Davis is lying or exagerating. I haven't read his in box. Have you ever read the threads at KOS or Democratic Underground? There is a lot of nasty stuff over there. I have never seen anything on Hit and Run that even compares. I like to poke people like Joe and Jennifer in the eye, but they are pretty reasonable people at heart. A lot of folks at Kos and DU and Huffington don't seem to be very reasonable. It makes Davis' story at least believable

Yes. And I've trolled around at the Free Republic, read through blogs like Powerline, and spent a decade on Usnet -- with a fondness for talk.atheism and talk.origins.

In short, Davis' is either:
1)Too thin-skinned to be in politics.
2)Exagerrating the shit out of things for political spin -- confusing blog posts and random comments, ommitting sarcasm, treating trolls seriously -- IE, being a fucking politician cherry-picking to fit his facts.
3)Lying

Personally, I say all three.

[John]

Morat20

I would love to see the Powerline posts that are so horrible. I don't read it much, so I am not saying your are wrong, but I would love to see the posts that are so horrible.

Ian,

I am not a hacker so I assume you are right about the effects of a DNS attack. I seriously doubt, however, that a incumbant senatorial campaign is so incompetant that it didn't purchase enough band width for its website. That doesn't add up at all.

[Jennifer]

I seriously doubt, however, that a incumbant senatorial campaign is so incompetant that it didn't purchase enough band width for its website

Yeah, elderly Senators are well-known for their tech savvy. Maybe Lieberman's problem is that the tubes leading to his Internet got all clogged.

So far, at least in my corner of the state, this primary is turning out to be a surprising non-issue. I've spent all morning and afternoon driving to various polling places, and figured I'd file a news story about this big huge important primary going on. But so far, it looks like the story I'll actually file is "where the hell is everybody?" At one election site, I spent a SOLID HOUR waiting for voters to show up so I could ask them for their opinion on the primary; nobody came. And instead of taking a photograph of people waiting in line to vote, I have a picture of a polling place completely empty except for the bored-looking election workers.

I suppose things will pick up once people start getting out of work, but right now my story consits of quotes from poll workers about how few people bothered to show.

[John]

"Yeah, elderly Senators are well-known for their tech savvy. Maybe Lieberman's problem is that the tubes leading to his Internet got all clogged."

yeah Jennifer I am sure he personally runs his own sight. It is not like he has a staff or the entire weight of the Connecticut Democratic Party establishment behind him or anything. I am sure old Joe was up all night in his basement trying to figure out this internet thingymajig.

As far as no one turning out, shockingly most people have lives and don't read the internet or care much about politics.

[Jennifer]

Jennifer I am sure he personally runs his own sight

No, he doesn't, but I doubt he'd know enough to even tell a staff member "make sure X is working properly." Besides, why leap to a conspiracy theory when simple incompetence works to explain the issue? Occam's Razor, remember.

As far as no one turning out, shockingly most people have lives and don't read the internet or care much about politics.

You do realize this comment doesn't reflect well on you, right?

[Morat]

Actually, the latest on this appears to support the "incompetence" claim. It appears Lieberman DIDN'T pay for sufficient bandwidth. God knows what his sysadmin is doing, but I'm guessing that when the site's bandwidth cut off, some staffer decided liberal bloggers/hackers ('cause blogging requires l33t hacking skillz) took the site down.

Oddly enough, you can ping the site easily enough (50ms from my location) and other sites on the same host are unaffected.

Going on 18 hours now, the only logical conclusion is that Lieberman's sysadmin is an idiot.

[Ian]

I am not a hacker so I assume you are right about the effects of a DNS attack. I seriously doubt, however, that a incumbant senatorial campaign is so incompetant that it didn't purchase enough band width for its website. That doesn't add up at all.

"Competent" is hardly the first word that comes to mind when I think of how the 2006 Lieberman campaign's been run.

[ChicagoTom]

Lieberman's site problems are due to the fact that he is hosting it on "MyHostCamp" and they have a 10 GB bandwidth limit for $15 / month.

http://www.meetned.com/ @ IP: 69.56.129.130
(Joe's attack site on Lamont)is working

http://www.joe2006.com/ @ IP: 69.56.129.130 (Same IP) isn't working.

If this were a denial of service attack coordinated by outside forces, neither site would work.

Maybe being too cheap to host a real site is his problem??

And real classy accusing your opponents of dirty tricks while acknowledging you have no proof whatsoever.

Real class act the Senator from CT.

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

ChicagoTom do you really understand how pathetic your comment really looks? And furthermore do you not think some of us might know you not what you are talking about?

It was hacked.

[anon]

You do realize this comment doesn't reflect well on you, right?

Not necessarily. It is possible that John is paid to post here and elsewhere. So, he is just doing his job.

[John M. Joy]

FWIW, joe2006.com is now responding (at least last I checked from here) at 68.178.232.95, a GoDaddy address (so sez ARIN).

JMJ

[John M. Joy]

P.S. "Responding" in this context means ICMP echo and http, though the regular site content is replaced by:

UPDATE ON THE ATTACK ON THE LIEBERMAN CAMPAIGN WEBSITE

STATEMENT FROM SEAN SMITH: "For the past 24 hours the Friends for Joe Lieberman's website and email has been totally disrupted and disabled, we believe that this is the result of a coordinated attack by our political opponents. The campaign has notified the US Attorney and the Connecticut Chief State's Attorney and the campaign will be filing a formal complaint reflecting our concerns. The campaign has also notified the State Attorney General Dick Blumenthal for his review."

"We call on Ned Lamont to make an unqualified statement denouncing this kind of dirty campaign trick and to demand whoever is responsible to cease and desist immediately. Any attempt to suppress voter participation and undermine the voting process on Election Day is deplorable and has no place in our democracy."

JMJ