Assorted underdogs  

Maybe I should catch up on current events:

1. Israel is sending more troops into Lebanon? Thus far they've completely failed to achieve a military victory, stirred up international sympathy for Hezbollah, and made Sheik Hassan Nasrallah the darling of the Arab world. I am very sympathetic to the Israelis -- they are, after all, being held to a much higher standard when it comes to civilian casualties, and can hardly be expected to stomach this incessant rocket lobbing from folks who want to see them wiped off the face of the planet. But the chances that they'll land a "crushing blow" seem infinitessimal, and even if they do it will be a Pyrrhic victory, given that the real battlefield is not on the battlefield at all. They've lost already, and they need an exit strategy... this kind of military thinking is so 2002.

2. Speaking of 2002, remember how good things were in Iraq back then? I am dumbfounded every time I hear someone say that things are "moving toward civil war" there. There are far more people dying each day in "sectarian violence" in Iraq than in Israel and Lebanon combined, but somehow the latter gets more cable news coverage and garners the prestigious "war" classification. Go figure. Seriously, the biggest loser in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict is the Iraqi people, who are now hovering out of sight, out of mind in relation to the American voter, who nevertheless gets to thoughtfully decide their fate in November. Democracy in action!

3. And then of course we have Ned Lamont, who landed his own crushing blow against Joseph Lieberman yesterday in what folks are calling a referendum on Iraq. I'm no friend of Lieberman and I'm not particularly concerned about the psychic reverberations this will have through the Democratic party establishment, but I am fascinated by the way influence is moving through the dark corners of the internet and just a little concerned about what this means for the the question of whether small-d democracy is viable or even coherent anymore. The players: a millionaire candidate who paid of much of his campaign out of pocket; a distributed (ie outside of CT) angry left that agitated and paid to see the incumbent senator of another state ousted; the venerable residents of CT; and millions of Iraqis whose country was invaded three years ago and whose future is somehow tied to the election result. Can somebody draw me an influence map, or maybe explain where in this mess I can find the concept of one person, one vote?