Category: Keepers

One of the more striking aspects of the pre-emptive strikes on Peter Beinart's tightly argued polemic, The Crisis Of Zionism, is not just their viciousness, but their avoidance of the core issue of the book:

Why continue to build the settlements?

Is it not clear by now that the settlements' existence and relentless expansion are turning liberal Zionism into "something much darker"? What justification is there for continuing to build them, to add to them, to keep increasing the Jewish population in an area that under any two-state solution, Israel would presumably have to give up? Only today, we read in Haaretz the following:

Civil Administration’s maps and figures, disclosed here for the first time, suggest the barrier route was planned in accordance with the available land in the West Bank, intended to increase the area and population of the settlements.

A total of 569 parcels of land were marked out, encompassing around 620,000 dunams ‏(around 155,000 acres‏) − about 10 percent of the total area of the West Bank. Since the late 1990s, 23 of the unauthorized outposts were built on land included in the map. The Civil Administration is endeavoring to legalize some of these outposts, including Shvut Rahel, Rehelim and Hayovel.

Etkes believes this indicates the settlers who built the outposts had access to the administration’s research on available land − more proof of the government’s deep involvement in the systematic violation of the law in order to expand settlements, he says.

Let us be clear. The Israeli government is systematically taking and holding the land that could be the Palestinians' future state. They have been doing so for decades. The deliberate population of occupied land violates the Geneva Conventions. The occupation itself enrages the Arab and Muslim world and creates a huge drag on the US's strategic need to build up allies among emerging Arab democracies, and defuse Jihadism across the globe.

And Peter's book is explicitly about this problem. It lies at the center of his argument. And yet it is all but ignored by his critics. The trope responses are varied in their weary familiarity. Let us examine them.

The Palestinians have for a long time been their own worst enemies, and in the past have not sought peace. It's more complicated than that, but sure, for much of the past sixty years, the Palestinians bear a huge responsibility for their own situation.

Why continue to build the settlements?

Iran's nuclear development is the most urgent issue.

Lets concede that for the sake of argument, but why continue to build the settlements?

China occupies Tibet and you don't fixate on that.

Well, I do oppose the occupation of Tibet and if my own taxpayers dollars were going directly to sustain that occupation, or to facilitate transfers of the Chinese population to Tibet to shift the demographic balance, I'd have an issue with that as well.

But why continue to build the settlements?

Obama made freezing the settlements a precondition for talks so it's his fault, the Greater Israel lobby insists, that the two state solution is going nowhere. But when the issue at hand is a division of land, and when one side, which holds almost all the raw power, wants to keep taking parts of that land while it is simultaneously negotiating its division, it's an impossible negotiation. You don't negotiate while simultaneously adding facts on the ground to tilt the talks your way. You freeze the situation; you talk to the other side. That's all Obama asked for – just a freeze of construction for a year. Netanyahu refused. Even the ten-month alleged suspension made no measurable difference in the number of new homes built in the relevant year.

So again: why continue to build the settlements?

And the reason for urgency is obvious: the faster the settlements grow in property, scale and population, the harder it will be to remove them. The longer a democracy occupies a foreign country and people, the more it risks the moral corruption of imperial control of another people's destiny, of dehumanizing those you fear, of fueling the hatred you then use to justify further violence and coercion. Peter Beinart's book is a simple restatement of this truth.

It cannot be restated enough.

And the evasions of this central point of Beinart's book by its vitriolic critics are as legion as they are predictable. And they matter. Because the evaders do not want to answer the question: why continue to build the settlements? They do not want to answer that question and dodge it relentlessly because the answer is obvious and devastating to their position.

The answer is that the settlements are there because the current Israeli government has no intention of ever dividing the land between Arabs and Jews in a way that would give the Palestinians anything like their own state; and have every intention of holding Judea and Samaria for ever. Netanyahu is, as Beinart rightly calls him, a Monist. He is the son of his father, Ben Zion, as Jeffrey Goldberg has also insisted on. But what Peter does is spell out one side of the Netanyahu vision that Goldberg elides.

Vladimir Jabotinsky was a huge influence on Netanyahu's father and Netanyahu himself. He's a complicated figure, as Beinart readily concedes. For Jabotinsky, what it all came down to in the end was "the single ideal: a Jewish minority on both sides of the Jordan as a first step towards the establishment of the State, That is what we call 'monism'." My italics. The Revisionist Zionists (whence eventually Likud) envisaged a Jewish state that would not only include the West Bank but the East Bank as well, i.e. Jordan.

Ben Zion Netanyahu followed Jabotinsky's vision, and his willingness, even eagerness, to use violence to achieve it: "We should conquer any disputed territory in the land of Israel. Conquer and hold it, even if it brings us years of war … You don't return land." Ben Zion Netanyahu even favored the "transfer" of Arabs living in Palestine to other Arab countries. In 2009, Netanyahu Sr, put his position this way to Maariv:

"The Jews and the Arabs are like two goats faing each other on a narrow bridge. One must jump into the river." "What does the Arab's jump mean?" asked the interviewer, trying to decipher the metaphor. Netanyahu explained: "That they won't be able to face the war with us, which will include withholding food from Arab cities, preventing education, terminating electrical power and more. They won't be able to exist and they will run away from here."

Suddenly, the situation in Gaza and much of the West Bank makes more sense, doesn't it? It's a conscious relentless assault on the lives of Palestinians to immiserate them to such an extent that they flee. And if you do not think that Bibi Netanyahu's father isn't easily the biggest influence on his life and worldview, read Jeffrey Goldberg. Money quote:

“Always in the back of Bibi’s mind is Ben-Zion,” one of the prime minister’s friends told me. “He worries that his father will think he is weak.”

Ben Zion is a radical and a fanatic and an illiberal Zionist, who sees the world as for ever 1938, the Arabs as a monolithic group of barbarians, and foreswears any interaction with them except through force. You cannot understand the current Israeli government without grasping that it is led by the son of the man who said this, and who shares his worldview. "The Arabs know only force," Bibi has said. And here is the message from Ben Zion on Iran, as reported by Goldberg:

“From the Iranian side, we hear pledges that soon—in a matter of days, even—the Zionist movement will be put to an end and there will be no more Zionists in the world. One is supposed to conclude from this that the Jews of the Land of Israel will be annihilated, while the Jews of America, whose leaders refuse to pressure Iran, are being told in a hinted fashion that the annihilation of the Jews will not include them … The Jewish people are making their position clear and putting faith in their military power. The nation of Israel is showing the world today how a state should behave when it stands before an existential threat: by looking danger in the eye and calmly considering what should be done and what can be done. And to be ready to enter the fray at the moment there is a reasonable chance of success.”

The key phrases are "faith in military power" and "enter the fray." Diplomacy with enemies is not in this mindset. Nor is any consideration but the defense and expansion of Greater Israel – "conquer and hold it" – even at the expense of what Ben Zion has called "years of war." Am I attaching the view of this fascistic vision from father to son? Not according to Goldberg:

Many people in Likud Party circles have told me that those who discount Ben-Zion’s influence on his son do so at their peril. “This was the father giving his son history’s marching orders,” one of the attendees told me. “I watched Bibi while his father spoke. He was completely absorbed.”

The mindset that believes that Israel should in principle include all of Jersualem, all of the West Bank, and all of Jordan, that it must never, ever return lands it "conquered", that all Arabs are barbarians, incapable of negotiating with, is exactly the same mindset that sees an existential threat from Iran – "in a matter of days even" – even though Iran has not yet got the capacity to make a single nuclear bomb, and if it did, would be facing over 100 nuclear warheads coming back from Israel and the annihiliation of most of its population. There's paranoia. And then there's irrationality.

And this irrationality is intrinsic to the current Israeli government's intent to hold on to the West Bank for ever, restrict Palestinians (whose very nationhood is dismissed) into vast gated communities, where the gates exist to keep the inhabitants inside, and between which Israel effectively rules. The inhabitants of these "reservations" would have no vote in Israel itself. And they would occupy only a fraction of the West Bank. This is the best we can expect from a Netanyahu future. It is not the likeliest, which is the continued settlement and de facto annexation of the entire area (i.e. the last three years).

If I am wrong, and those remaining liberal Israelis who still believe in a democratic, pluralist Israel can find a way to remove the settlements and come to a 1967-based land-swap compromise, we may be able to view this Netanyahu-Lieberman era as a horrible period in a gradual path forward. But the one emotion I felt closing Peter's book was sadness. I don't think the data suggest that either a majority of Israelis or a majority of American Jews are prepared to challenge a policy of conquering and subjugating another people in this way. And Beinart's book is very persuasive in showing how the mere act of occupation – the way it sets up inherent distance between Jew and Arab, and constantly humiliates the Arab – is profoundly shifting Israeli culture in such a way as to make the younger generations even less likely to compromise with "the other" than the older ones.

Beinart's book has been attacked so mercilessly, in my view, because it clearly, methodically, even-handedly exposes the radical Zionism that threatens to eclipse Israeli democracy, corrupt Jewish ethics and threaten American interests across the globe. And the key proof of his case is the continued, relentless expansion of West Bank settlements, and the ethnic social engineering in East Jerusalem. And so I ask again of Beinart's criticism to answer the core question of the book:

Why continue to build the settlements? 

(Photo: Israeli settlers walk along al-Shuhada street, past two of dozens of shuttered Palestinian owned shops daubed with the Jewish Star of David, on September 28, 2010, in the West Bank town of Hebron, after Palestinians were forced years ago to move out of the old quarter by the Israeli army to allow for the Jewish settlers to move securely in the area. A few hundred hardline Jewish settlers live under heavy Israeli military protection in the heart of the town of 160,000 mostly Muslim Palestinians. By Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty.)

(Portraits (from top down): Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Ben Zion Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu.)

That's the question that has long been floating in my mind. Part of me thinks, the loathing of Obama will do the trick. But part of me also thinks that an Etch-A-Sketch is not the perfect vehicle for base mobilization. Tom Edsall notes that evangelicals now represent a majority (50.53 percent) of Republican primary voters so far, the "highest percentage recorded in a presidential nominating process," according to Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition:

There are signs that base Republican voters won’t turn out for Romney. Gallup found that only 35% of such voters would "enthusiastically" back Romney in the election, far fewer than the 47% percent who said they enthusiastically supported McCain at this time in 2008. These lukewarm Republican primary voters are, in effect, threatening to abandon the nominee after forcing him to pass ruthless ideological litmus tests. 

The core of the party, then, the men and women who cast primary ballots and attend caucuses, has become a liability in much the same way that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party pushed presidential candidates off the deep end from the late 1960s through the 1980s. 

The problem with this argument is that Santorum generates the same relatively low level of enthusiasm as well – and that the Gallup number is of all Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, so doesn't demonstrate the evangelical factor. But since evangelicals are now a slim majority of the GOP – making it even more a religious rather than a political party – the drop in enthusiasm from last time around, when they lost decisively, must be worrying for some in the Romney camp.

Maybe a truly charismatic candidate could turn that around. Palin could do it, at the expense of all moderates. Romney almost certainly can't.

(Chart from Pollster, sans Rasmussen.)

Here in America, we see a Catholic hierarchy all but joining forces with the Republican party to insist on their right to control what is offered as healthcare to their employees in religiously-affiliated schools and hospitals and public services. In Britain, we see a furious campaign to prevent gay couples from having civil marriage licenses, a reform backed by the Conservative prime minister, and both opposition parties. And for much of the moment, this will be what the Church presents to the world: an attempt to control the medical care for women in its employ and its determination to keep homosexuals out of the word "marriage" and, thereby, "family."

There is a spiritual and religious cost to this. And I do not mean that the Church should always "keep up with the times." There are moments when a Church's role is precisely to abandon the contemporary world in order to uphold what it takes to be eternal truths. But the narrowness of the current crusades – against a pill used by 98 percent of Catholic women, whose consciences are their own, and against people of a different sexual orientation that the Church acknowledges is unchosen – damages Christianity in the culture, and, in my view, misses the forest for the trees.

Christianity is not about the control of others; it is about the liberation Christ brings to each of us, and how we can learn to trust that incarnated love in escaping our daily failures, sins, weakness, cruelties – in order to bring love into being in the world.

And so the following thoughts from a dissident priest in Wales seem to me to get the balance right in our current trials. Read it all. Money quote:

I welcome the debate on the meaning of marriage and its role and purpose in a liberal diverse society. But growing ever stronger in my mind is the fear that while as a Church we worry about language and words – Welsh or English or Latin; rock or plainsong; marriage or civil partnership – the message and meaning that we are here to proclaim is passing us by.

Surely if there is one constant and common theme throughout the scriptures it is in the gradual discovery and recognition of the reality of God as a God of an inclusive and all-embracing Love whose ultimate expression is found in the Paschal Mystery of Death and Resurrection of his “Word” incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth.

The purpose and mission of the Church, surely, is to be an effective and coherent witness to and expression of that love in our world and our time – however we do it, and in whatever language, for everyone…

Society sees little of that, sadly, when it sees a church hierarchy that all too willingly goes into convulsions when moral issues are called into question but remains silent when faced with the real social scandals of our time.

But I do see it in the people, young and old, who still come faithfully to fill the pews and celebrate the mystery of a love that defies all our definitions and the limits we place on it. I see it in their acts of sacrifice and solidarity, in their innate sense of dignity, justice and a shared and sacred humanity. Perhaps when as a Church we begin to speak about that a bit more, the world will once again sit up and listen.

(Photos: Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty, and Mohammed Abed/Getty)

The extreme comfort the British prime minister and his closest aides have with the Obama administration – Cameron-Obama; Osborne-Geithner, and most strikingly, Hague-Clinton – is, I think, a function of the Obama administration's essentially conservative foreign policy.

They've dialed down the counterproductive bluster, and ended the shame of torture, while ramping up the lethality of the war against Jihadism. In the days when conservatism did not mean Dixiecrat extremism or Santorum's disquisitions on Papal diktats, the Tory-Democrat bond would not be so strong. But Obama's shrewd, patient blend of calm talk and relentless diplomacy backed by a series of brutally successful military actions, has made a Tory-Democratic alliance a natural one. Just as Blair and Bush were spendthrift, proselytizing interventionists; and Thatcher and Reagan were anti-Communist cruaders; so Obama and Cameron are shrewd, calm realists, with a humanitarian instinct. Last night, Cameron lavished praise on the character and moral integrity of this president. Yes, guests always say such things. But you could see the genuineness of the relationship distinctly.

And, of course, the leadership of the current Conservative Party in Britain could fit into the Democratic party here quite easily. Cameron is forging a path to gay marriage in Britain, even as he is pressuring Obama on climate change. He's fiscally much more conservative, of course. But without a reserve currency, he has to be. And one senses that David Cameron was quite relieved not to have to have a meeting with a Republican nominee in the current climate.And who can blame them?

Mercifully, the Brits are not alone in seeing reality through the fog of Ailesian propaganda. Here's Chuck Hagel, once deemed a key Republican authority on foreign policy:

In Britain, where the cause of marriage equality is being championed by a Conservative prime minister (rendering him, by US standards, a socialist Satanist), a new poll finds a plurality of 45 – 36 – in favor of turning same-sex civil partnerships into civil marriages. Another new poll finds very similar results: 43 – 32. Among those under 24, the support for full marriage equality is 66 percent. Among those over 60, it is 21 percent – an even more extreme generation gap than in the US. But for even the over-60s, 71 percent favor either civil marriage or civil partnerships with all the legal rights of civil marriage. Britain is light years' ahead of the US now on this issue – because conservatism there is not in the grip of religious fundamentalism.

But it's particularly gratifying to see in Britain how the Conservatives are actually leading the way in reforming this institution to include every Brit, gay or straight. That's in the tradition of Burke and Disraeli, who both believed that institutions needed to be reformed in order to remain the same in a constantly changing society. Cameron used this issue – full inclusion of and equality for gays – and an aggressive response to climate change as the key indicators that he was a modern conservative, not a religious reactionary. In the US, these two issues have now become fundamentalist litmus tests. To be a conservative in America means implacable hostility to any recognition of gay relationships and denial of the existence of climate change. Both positions are driven by religious fundamentalism.

So look at another conservative path – the kind of path that could not exist if Corey Robin is correct about conservatism's essence. And yet, at his last very Conservative Party Conference speech, Cameron forthrightly declared:

"I don't support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative, I support gay marriage because I am a conservative."

Today, the British media has been full of Tory voices backing marriage equality as a socially conservative policy, as, of course, it is. Over to Matthew D'Ancona, one of the leading conservative intellectuals and writers in Britain:

[T]he case for gay marriage is essentially conservative. I am grateful to Ian Ker’s magisterial new biography of G K Chesterton for the following observation by its subject: “All conservatism goes upon the assumption that if you leave a thing alone, you’ll leave a thing as it is. But you do not. If you leave a thing to itself, you are leaving it to wild and violent changes.” The example cited by GKC was the Vale of the White Horse in Berkshire, symbol of ancient England, and constantly in need of repainting.

Chesterton was scarcely a moderniser. But his point applies well to the institution of marriage. In an age of impatience, lives based on tactics not strategy, and instant gratification, matrimony is in dire need of renewal and restoration. Last week, Cardinal O’Brien argued that procreation was the essence of marriage. I beg to differ, and to suggest that the ideal at the core of this dilapidated institution is lifelong commitment and, crucially, a public vow by two people to forge such a shared life.

If marriage is indeed the cornerstone of a stable society, as conservatives plausibly argue, then its extension to same-sex couples will be a stabilising force. Gay couples who marry will not only be exercising a new right; they will be recruited to, and reinforcing, an ancient institution.

The poll also shows high numbers saying that this need not be a legislative priority right now. Understandable, given an economy in a depression now longer than the Great Depression. But it hardly distracts from economic management for a free vote to take place in the House of Commons. And it gives me enormous pride to see one party in the Anglo-American conservative world being genuinely conservative rather than reactionary.

One day, here, perhaps, a conservatism which is more than just resentment and reactionaryism will re-emerge as well. Just not yet.

(Photo: the oldest chalk figure in Britain, dating from 1000 BC, in the Vale of the White Horse in the Cotswolds in England. From here: "Its shape is not just etched into the hillside, but formed by cutting a trench to shape and infilling it with chalk blocks.")

At mass today throughout England and Wales, a letter was read out from the pulpit in every church decrying any move, backed by the Coalition government and Labour opposition, toward granting gay couples equal marriage rights. Under Benedict XVI, this is scarcely a surprise. But what one notices immediately in the text of the letter is the complete absence of any reference to gay people at all.

There is merely a reiteration of Catholic teaching on the sacrament of marriage. The actual occasion for this letter is unmentioned. There is on section of compassion for those outside of Catholic marital norms:

In putting before you these thoughts about why marriage is so important, we also want to recognise the experience of those who have suffered the pain of bereavement or relationship breakdown and their contribution to the Church and society. Many provide a remarkable example of courage and fidelity. Many strive to make the best out of difficult and complex situations. We hope that they are always welcomed and helped to feel valued members of our parish communities.

Is this directed at gay people? It doesn't appear so. It appears directed at widows or widowers or those whose marriages have collapsed. The Church exercizes compassion toward those incapable of living up to its stringent norms of marriage for life – but only for heterosexuals. Homosexuals remain unmentionable, silenced and removed from the world we live in and the church so many love and serve. The hierarchs cannot even say the word.

There is no more gruesome reminder of the sheer callousness of this exclusion than the story the Dish referred to recently and that is updated in the New York Times:

On Feb. 15, Mr. Fischer announced his joyful plans [to marry his longtime partner] to colleagues at a staff meeting. His colleagues applauded, he said. He did not realize that an official from the Archdiocese of St. Louis was in attendance. The next day, Mr. Fischer was informed that he was fired. Two weeks later, after news of his firing made headlines, he was terminated from his second, part-time job as music director for the Roman Catholic church where he and his partner, Charlie Robin, have worshiped for more than six years.

In the other recent case of anti-gay bias at the very altar, when a priest refused communion to a lesbian attending the funeral mass of her mother, the priest has been removed from ministry. But the reason given is not his cruelty to the lesbian daughter or indeed anything to do with his refusal of communion at all. He has been relieved of his duties for “engaging in intimidating behavior toward parish staff and others that is incompatible with proper priestly ministry.” Again the proximate cause of this is excised from the record. Any sign that the Catholic hierarchy might sympathize with gay people, defend them against hate or marginalization, or recognize their human dignity … is over the horizon.

This is a church now intent on erasing from visibility a small minority of human beings, while waging a campaign to keep them as second class citizens in their own countries and as subhuman "objectively disordered" beings in their own church. They cannot even speak our name. Because were they to see us as the human beings we are, if they had to confront the actual experienced reality of our lives, if they actually had a conversation with us, and engaged the problem rather than dismissing it as "madness", their pretense would be exposed.

The leaders of the current Catholic hierarchy are the Pharisees of our time. They are the people Jesus came to liberate us from. And he does. And he will.

It's hard to absorb the reality of what we are now hearing. A rogue and deranged US sergeant, tasked with a "village stabilization operation," decided to leave his base and launch a cold blooded massacre of innocents:

Residents of three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province described a terrifying string of attacks in which the soldier, who had walked more than a mile from his base, tried door after door, eventually breaking in to kill within three separate houses. At the first, the man gathered 11 bodies, including those of four girls younger than 6, and set fire to them, villagers said.

So first the US forces burn Korans out of incompetence and now one lone sergeant is burning the freshly-murdered corpses of children out of derangement, one can only surmise (and hope). I cannot, frankly, see how the occupation can recover from this series of events. Children have long been collateral casualties of the successful drone war, but this is the first time they have been directly murdered by a US soldier in cold blood and then burned. If this happened in America by a soldier of an army that had been in occupation for over a decade, how do you think public opinion would respond here?

As for US opinion, the latest polling shows that the public wants out:

Sixty percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan has not been not worth fighting and just 30 percent believe the Afghan public supports the U.S. mission there — marking the sour state of attitudes on the war even before the shooting rampage allegedly by a U.S. soldier this weekend.

Indeed a majority in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 54 percent, say the United States should withdraw its forces from Afghanistan without completing its current effort to train Afghan forces to become self-sufficient.

Mercifully, this atrocity, unlike much of what occurred at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in the Bush-Cheney years, is not policy – far from it. But this act is so barbarous, so counter to American values, and so destructive of the mission that we surely must see some accountability – even if it is merely formal – for this atrocity. We entered Afghanistan to remove the murderer of innocents. A decade later, the roles are, in one case, reversed. These are the risks of warfare. We should recall them before we launch into another even more dangerous one.

(Photo: A mourner cries over the bodies of Afghan civilians, allegedly shot by a rogue US soldier, seen loaded into the back of a truck in Alkozai village of Panjwayi district, Kandahar province on March 11, 2012. An AFP reporter counted 16 bodies — including women and children — in three Afghan houses after a rogue US soldier walked out of his base and began shooting civilians early Sunday. NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it had arrested a soldier 'in connection to an incident that resulted in Afghan casualties in Kandahar province', without giving a figure for the dead or wounded. By Jangir/AFP/Getty Images.)

Many in Washington remain befuddled by Rick Santorum's embrace of radical social reactionaryism in an electorate primarily concerned with the economy. What they miss is that was only through bringing such issues to the front and center that Santorum could break through the frothy oblivion to which Dan Savage had tried to send him. He realized that this was what positively motivates those who were not yet sold on Romney.

But this only reinforces my point about the politics of sex. It's a wedge issue now for the left. Since contraception emerged as an issue, thanks to the posturing of Benedict XVI's amen-chorus, Obama has seen his ratings slowly climb, while the GOP candidates' unfavorable numbers keep growing. And Santorum's canny use of the issues has helped him sustain a primary campaign that will now only serve to weaken, demoralize and drain money from Romney.

So this election could prolong the Republican agony for another electoral cycle at least. It could lead to a general election candidate dubbed both rich and out of touch and only lip-syncing the theological truths that evangelicals hold dear. If he loses, it could well mean another spasm of even more Christianist extremism the next time round, since Christianists will argue that running another faux-culture-warrior was the reason they lost.

I say: nominate Santorum and get this over with. Then find a Romney in 2016 who actually is more moderate and doesn't feel the need to apologize for it. But this won't happen. The one outlier that might just happen? A brokered convention where a Palin-like figure emerges. Or a mess, where Romney feels obliged to lie even more, smear even more, and war-monger even more to force himself into a stronger position in the fall.

I fear a weak GOP candidate held afloat by a tsunami of smear ads against Obama, using the race card, the Israel card, the religion card, the Birther card, and what have you – thrown in by billionaires who hate the guy or who are obsessed with Greater Israel. It could be one of the ugliest smear campaigns Romney has ever run – and that's saying something.

(Photo: A supporter of former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum wears a button that reads, 'Don't Believe the Liberal Media!' as he speaks during a campaign stop at Chillicothe High School in Chillicothe, Ohio on March 2, 2012. By Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

11.11 pm. I'm clicking over to Comedy Central at this point. My take-away?

Santorum won three states and basically tied in Ohio. That keeps him afloat with some forward direction, especially given the upcoming primary states where Santorum has a demographic edge. The fact that he did this well despite being buried by Romney ads and money in Ohio is a real achievement. Romney, for his part, still cannot win blue-collar votes and still cannot nail down evangelical support. He comes away with many more delegates, but few bragging rights. In Ohio, he won everywhere Obama will win in the fall.

If Newt bowed out, we might have a real cotest. But he won't. So we have, perhaps, the worst of all possible worlds for the GOP: a front-runner who cannot be stopped, but who is losing altitude against Obama with every vote, and being slimed by Republican rivals for at least another month. Even his stump speech has deteriorated. And his unfavorables continue a relentless rise.

Ugh.

11.06 pm. Given the current data, Rove and Trippi are calling it for Romney. And he has just taken the lead for the first time.

11.04 pm. Little things:

Margin for automatic recount in Ohio: .25 percent or less.

Oh God.

11 pm. Really, Newt should get out now:

[O]utside of Georgia, Mr. Gingrich is running in third place or worse in all states that have reported results so far. He is behind Mitt Romney in Oklahoma and Tennessee, and has only about 15 percent of the vote in Ohio — not enough to receive proportional delegates there, which would require a 20 percent margin. Nor has he shown any sign of life in the caucus states.

10.59 pm. A reader writes:

You mention Licking and Pickaway counties, but old favorites are Wood and neighboring Hancock counties. Oddly enough, both for Santorum.

But they changed his brown color on Fox News. For shame.

10.57 pm. A great night for Ron Paul:

Ron Paul quintupled his 2008 Virginia vote count, and because of the smaller turnout overall he octupled his percentage of the vote there. Paul tripled his 2008 result in Vermont, and he did the same in Oklahoma and Massachusetts. He is running ahead of his 2008 numbers in North Dakota, and he has a chance of scoring an upset in Idaho or Alaska.

10.48 pm. John Fund understates:

Given his crushing financial advantage, Romney should have done better tonight.

Ya think?

10.47 pm. Sounds about right:

To summarize: Romney has won his home state (MA), a liberal state that borders his home state (VT), and a state where his only opponent was Ron Paul (VA). He's lost everywhere else.

10.46 pm. Major hathos alert: Santorum's super-fans sing their own Super Tuesday song:

10.42 pm. Let's call Ohio. It's a tie, with Romney getting more delegates. That's not enough for Romney to claim a real victory and sustain any real momentum, even if he wins. So we're back where we started.

10.40 pm. If Romney couldn't win anywhere in the South or West, what's gonna happen next Tuesday, when Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, and Kansas vote?

10.39 pm. Frum is letting Schadenfreude get the better of him. But it's entertaining:

People are comparing this to 1964. But let's remember that Barry Goldwater WON his Senate seat in 1958.

10.36 pm. Nerd zone:

In terms of delegate count, whether Santorum crosses 20% in Georgia is more important – and more suspenseful at moment – than who wins Ohio.

He's currently dead on at 20 percent, with 87 percent counted.

10.35 pm. Heh:

Remember the Simpsons where Homer is only employee who hasn't won Worker of the Week, and then they give it to a carbon rod? Romney=Homer.

10.29 pm. Could Democrats put Santorum ahead in Ohio?

According to exit polls, Democrats constituted 5 percent of the Ohio primary electorate, and 45 percent of them voted for Mr. Santorum. Just 25 percent voted for Mitt Romney. That translates roughly into a 1 or 2 percentage point bump for Mr. Santorum.

10.23 pm. Mitt's Southern weakness could be fatal in November:

Sure, Romney will win these states in the general election, but this is the heart of the Republican national governing coalition. This is where enthusiasm for the party's eventual nominee should be at its strongest. In 2008, Huckabee gave Sen. John McCain a run for his money in the South, but McCain won in South Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Missouri. George W. Bush dominated the South. Former Sen. Bob Dole dominated the South. President George H.W. Bush dominated the South. President Ronald Reagan dominated the South.

Of course, none of them was a Mormon who enacted universal healthcare in his home state,  Massachusetts.

10.21 pm. How could Ohio counties called Licking and Pickaway not vote for Santorum?

10.20 pm. My basic position:

As much as I hate everything Santorum stands for, no one fills me with as much inner revulsion as Romney does.

10.19 pm. A depressed base:

Turnout estimates in GA, MA, OK and VA all lower than in 2008. Only in VT is turnout expected to be up from '08.

10.15 pm. Ohio still looks awfully close, and we're up to over 60 percent reporting. Even Rove is beginning to backtrack on confidence that Romney has it in the bag. And if you look at Wyoming, it's neck and neck between Romney and Santorum, even with a tiny amount of votes now in.

Yes, Wyoming and North Dakota are not delegate-rich. But if Santorum comes out of tonight having won more or as many states as Romney, the momentum could easily shift to him, as Gallup suggests may have happened already. For Romney to fade one more time is going to make him look like a candidacy that simply cannot take.

10.08 pm. Santorum is comfortably ahead in North Dakota, with 51 percent of the votes counted. Romney is currently third. That gives Santorum bragging rights for three states.

10.02 pm. Seriously, that Romney speech was so riddled with empty cliches, exhausted tropes, and almost comically bad rhetoric, that one wonders if he cannot afford actual, you know, speech-writers. Or that he simply doesn't have a message. All he has is personal animosity toward the president, who, as a person, is widely liked.

9.58 pm. What will the spin be? I suspect it will be Romney's lackluster showing and Santorum's resilience – with a late uptick yesterday and today. Jon Tobin agrees:

Romney will rightly claim that any result that leaves him much closer to the delegate count he needs to be the nominee is a big win. And if he can combine that with taking Ohio — an outcome that is still very much in doubt at the moment — it will be reasonable for him to spin Super Tuesday as a triumph for his candidacy. However, Santorum’s victories in Tennessee and Oklahoma not only will pump new life into the Pennsylvanian’s campaign, the results also reinforce Romney’s problems with conservatives. Rather than spending tomorrow talking about Romney’s inevitability, the discussion may be more about his continued difficult in closing the deal with his own party’s base.

Now if only Newt could put his ego in the overhead.

9.54 pm. Another terrible, awful speech from Romney. His wife is better. Meanwhile, Silver sticks his neck out and thinks Santorum could win Ohio:

Pretty sure Santorum is a slight favorite in Ohio. He's maybe ~60%-70% likely to win.

He's ahead with around 50 percent of the vote in; but the votes from Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus – where Romney is ahead – are behind in the counting. Still, I trust Nate's data-crunching.

9.48 pm. Mitt very Teleprompty. And lame, of course. He makes me wince. There's the occasional smug self-congratulatory faux-humble nod and smile when he gets an applause line. And now we're having a recital of various ordinary Americans – in order, presumably, to overcome the yawning gap in the polls on his worrying about the same things you do.

9.41 pm. The zombie is about to speak. Nate Silver reads some not-so-great tea-leaves:

So far, Mitt Romney is under-performing his polls in most states that have reported results so far, while Rick Santorum is over-performing his — possibly by a wide enough margin to swing Ohio …

Although the polling data generally showed improving numbers for Mr. Romney over the course of the last week, there was one exception. The Gallup national tracking poll released on Tuesday afternoon showed Mr. Romney's numbers declining by 4 points, and Mr. Santorum gaining 2.

9.39 pm. Interesting stat:

Part of the reason Romney's doing just "okay" in Vermont? White evangelical up to 27%. Well above 2008 %.

9.34 pm. Tweet of the night from Rich Lowry:

If santorum cld win the catholic vote he might be running away w/ this thing

Heh. But count me unshocked. In the words of Garry Wills: “Santorum is not a Catholic, but a papist.” I'd put it a little less bluntly: he's more of a Papist than a Catholic and more a radical reactionary than a conservative. He's the ideal Christianist candidate for the far right.

9.30 pm. In Ohio, the bell-wether has some fascinating nuggets in the exit poll. Only 57 percent of the voters say they would be satisifed if Romney were the nominee, compared with 37 percent who wouldn't. Santorum does better: 61 – 34. In other words, Santorum has won over more of those who voted for the other guys than Romney has.

9.25 pm. Romney outspent Santorum in Ohio by around 5 – 1. The vote is still too close to call. Santorum focuses on Obamacare as the "end of freedom in America." Better than Newt's drill, drill, drill and me, me, me. The mandate is a powerful message for the GOP – and Romney cannot use it without looking demonstrably fatuous and insincere.

9.20 pm. Santorum has won far more states than Newt – and across the country. If Newt weren't the massive, gelatinous blob of self-loving he is, he'd get out of the way and force Romney to compete alone against his main competitor, Santorum. Santorum's wins are more impressive because he was so massively outspent by Romney in every contest. That's what he's bragging about now. And given his ability to win the evangelical base, and to rally the white working class, I think he's as electable as Mitt Romney up against Obama. His strengths match Obama's weaknesses. Romney's strengths are outmatched by Obama's.

9.19 pm. Frum is on the same page I am:

This is shaping up as a scary night for those who think that Mitt Romney is the only conceivable Republican nominee in 2012. The Republican Party does not agree. Not winning Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma … that's troubling. There's still no path for anybody else to the Republican nomination. But ouch, ouch, ouch, what a bumpy path for the guy it's going to have to be.

When you factor in his losing the "moral character" vote and the "true conservative vote" and the evangelical vote and the votes of those who earn under $50k.

9.14 pm. Don't get too excited:

The percentage of voters who said they "have reservations" about the candidates they voted for was at least a third in each of these states: Ohio (41 percent), Oklahoma (33 percent), Georgia (37 percent), Tennessee (41 percent), Virginia (40 percent) and Vermont (36 percent).

The WSJ interviewed some of the depressed GOPers:

Voters offered words such as "disillusioned" and "frustrated" to describe how they felt about the nominating process. Many worried the prolonged primary fight is helping President Barack Obama's re-election effort.

9.11 pm. What a miserable, narcissistic, piss-poor speech from Newt. Scott Lemieux:

What should be his concession speech but wasn’t because he’s Newt does situate him right at the heart of the Republican universe in one respect: the man is 100% pure resentment. It’s like Michael Jordan … if Michael Jordan had only been a minor league baseball player.

I'd differ in one respect: 99 percent resentment, 1 percent dishonesty.

9.10 pm. The Virginia turnout – where Newt and Rick were absent – had a pathetic turn-out of 5.5 percent, the lowest ever.

9.08 pm. Oh, snap, David:

"Eviscerating" Newt Gingrich would be a substantial project

9.01 pm. Romney's win tonight will dispell no doubts. Nor should it:

In terms of candidate traits, while Romney won the electability argument, Santorum won strongly among those who voted for a “true conservative” – he got 50 percent, compared with 21 percent for Paul, 16 percent for Gingrich and just 13 percent for Romney. Santorum also had a huge lead among voters who based their choice on a candidate’s “strong moral character”: 59 percent of those voters picked Santorum, compared with 18 percent for Romney.

The grimness of the transaction deepens.

8.58 pm. The evangelical problem is deep, as tonight demonstrates. Ryan Lizza notes:

Romney has lost evangelicals in every contest—and by an average of fifteen points. His best showing came in New Hampshire, where he lost the evangelical vote by nine points, and his worst came in Iowa, where he lost it by twenty-four points. Romney has been running for President for six years, and yet his share of the evangelical vote has declined in most states, compared with his showing in 2008.

It dropped by ten points in Iowa, eight points in South Carolina, seventeen points in Florida, ten points in Arizona, and five points in Michigan. In New Hampshire, there was modest improvement (one point), and in the low-attendance contest in Nevada, some significant improvement (eight points).

There was little improvement tonight. If Romney wins Ohio, it will be because Catholics refused to vote for the two Catholics in the race.

8.56 pm. I'm with Erickson:

So our front runner continues his losing streak of evangelicals, the South, and most most conservatives.

8.54 pm. Silver:

Mitt Romney leads Rick Santorum by about 6 percent in Ohio based on the precincts that have reported so far. However, this vote is in some of his strongest areas, and the margin should tighten as more rural areas report.

8.48 pm. Even in Virginia, Romney loses the under $50k vote to Ron Paul. In Georgia, he lost everyone under $200k to Gingrich. In Tennessee, he lost everyone under $100k. In Ohio, he lost everyone earning under $100k to Santorum. In Vermont, he lost the under $30k vote to Ron Paul. 

I suspect that Romney's plutocratic image is fatal in this climate. If he cannot win this demographic even in a primary anywhere, he's got a very steep climb to rehabilitate himself with working class Americans by the fall. He may be the only GOP candidate who seems more "elite" to these voters than Barack Obama. Given that resentment is the core primary emotion among today's Republicans, that's an issue.

8.44 pm. An intensely self-important speech by Gingrich. If he mentions elites one more time, I'll run out of Jager. So self-regarding, so vain, so pompous. And another Republican mentioning "Wall Street money" and "the forces of Wall Street." He's portraying the race as Wall Street vs Newt, and "Wall Street" is a stand-in for Mitt Romney.

8.43 pm. Ohio's population is 12 percent African-American. In this primary, 1 percent were African-American. As America gets more and more mocha, the GOP gets whiter and whiter.

8.39 pm. Santorum wins Tennessee, along with Oklahoma. He won convincingly among those earning under $200K. Over $200K? Romney wins again. He has the very rich white Republican vote in the bag. Everyone else? Not so much.

8.37 pm. In no state did Romney win the least wealthiest segment of the vote. Even in Vermont, he lost the under $30K vote to Paul.

8.32 pm. The delegate count is what matters and it's gonna make a difference in the three states we'll not be focusing on tonight: Virginia, Idaho and Massachusetts. Romney will rack up huge victories in those states.

8.27 pm. So Stupor Tuesday it is. My preliinary take: this changes nothing but adds to Romney's mounting delegate lead and zombie-like progress. Newt's strong showing in Georgia means he'll prevent Santorum from becoming the candidate of the South; Romney still isn't winning the base, either among evangelicals or those earning under $50,000; Santorum's appeal is real, but without an Ohio victory (even though it looks close), he'll strain to maintain momentum.

For me, the fact that Romney cannot win 60 percent in a two-man race against Ron Paul in Virginia is about as damning a result for an alleged front-runner as you can get. But he'll get a big delegate haul. That's the story line from tonight. In Walter Kirn's words:

Again tonight the 'narrative' will be: Romney wins. But not by enough. And with the wrong people. It's not over yet!

8.26 pm. Pareene:

It is sort of funny that the guy who just won Vermont is going to be the Republican nominee instead of the guy who won Georgia.

8.22 pm. Newt's victory in Georgia means he'll hang in, helping Romney. An Yglesias Award nomination for Allahpundit:

[S]ince we’re rapidly approaching the moment when criticizing Romney will be treated as high treason on the right, go ahead and read this excellent Dan McLaughlin piece at Red State analyzing Mitt as a salesman for conservative policies while you still can. The bottom line: He’s not going to win any converts. If the GOP takes back the White House, it’ll be because Obama somehow blew it, not because Romney talked centrists into embracing moving right.

In Ohio, Romney lost independents and Democrats to Santorum. Partisan loyalty is all that Romney seems to have going for him.

8.19 pm. In Ohio, the race was close among all women: 37 – 40 for Santorum. But among unmarried women? Santorum lost big: 30 – 44 percent.

8.13 pm. In Virginia, where it was a Romney-Paul face-off, Paul narrowly won the vote of those earning under $50,000 a year, another bad sign for Romney's ability to relate to most Americans. Paul also thumped Romney among Independents: 64 – 36 percent. And they formed a third of the vote. But Virginia is the first state where Romney has won evangelicals: with 63 percent. The bottom line, though, is that it's a big delegate winner for Romney:

That 46-delegate haul amounts to roughly one-quarter of the 187 delegates that Romney had won coming into Super Tuesday. It’s nearly 70 percent of the 65 delegates former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum had accumulated in the first two months of the race. It’s 16 delegates more than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has won in the race to date.

8.10 pm. Again, among evangelicals, Santorum crushes Romney in Oklahoma, 41 – 24 percent. In Tennessee, Santorum wins in this demographic by a very similar 40 – 24 percent.

8.06 pm. In Ohio, Romney has lost born again evangelicals again – with 31 percent to Santorum's 47 percent.  Santorum wins among voters for whom religious faith matters by 52 – 21 percent.

8.03 pm. Santorum has won both Independents and Democrats in Ohio. He had almost twice as many Democrats as Romney: not a good sign for Mitt in this critical state.

8.00 pm. Santorum gets Oklahoma, and is leading Romney in Tennessee – in a squeaker.

7.56 pm. More good news for Romneymentum in Ohio via Mark Murray:

Most striking exits in OH: Romney leads Santo BIG, 50%-28%, among those who decided to vote "in the last few days."

7.55 pm. Romney must be relieved to see clear margins in Ohio among conservatives and "somewhat comservatives". He's only losing by 15 points among "very conservative" voters.

7.47 pm. In Vermont, Romney's lead is rather sad so far, with Santorum and Paul winning a quarter of the vote each and Mitt struggling to get to 40 percent; in Virginia, Ron Paul currently has 41 percent of the vote to Romney's 59 percent: a shocker to my mind. Fox is dismissing it as a "protest vote". Some protest. And why are they protesting?

7.44 pm. The networks take note:

In 2008: big 3 networks had a combined 6 hours of prime time Super Tuesday coverage. Tonight: just 1 hour + brief updates.

7.43 pm. More depressing news for the GOP about their candidates:

In Ohio, just 43 percent of voters said they strongly favored their candidate. Another 41 percent said they liked their candidate but with reservations, while 13 percent said they voted for him solely because they disliked the other candidates.

The 43 percent "strongly favor" figure is the lowest in any state so far, although exit polls have not posed this question to voters in all states. The figure was 63 percent in Iowa, 51 percent in Arizona, and 45 percent in Michigan.

7.40 pm. Not a good sign for Romney in the South:

More than six in 10 primary voters in Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia say it’s important to share a candidate’s religious beliefs, according to preliminary exit polling. Sharing religious values peaks in Tennessee, where nearly three-quarters say so.

7.38 pm. The enthusiasm problem for the GOP in 2012:

7.34 pm. In every state, exit polls are showing, Romney isn't winning on the empathy issue – just electability against Obama.

7.30 pm. The votes are now in in Ohio; and no one is predicting a victor. Meanwhile, Gingrich has handily won Georgia, with Romney in third place right now; and Romney has won Virginia – but right now by a much smaller margin over Ron Paul than expected. Fox tells me that Catholics in Ohio have not backed Gingrich or Santorum, which surprises me not.

(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty.)

The bottom line:

Iran's leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon …. Already, there is too much loose talk of war. Over the last few weeks, such talk has only benefited the Iranian government, by driving up the price of oil, which they depend upon to fund their nuclear program. For the sake of Israel's security, America's security, and the peace and security of the world, now is not the time for bluster; now is the time to let our increased pressure sink in, and to sustain the broad international coalition that we have built. Now is the time to heed that timeless advice from Teddy Roosevelt: speak softly, but carry a big stick.

I agree with Ackerman that Obama basically repeated his Goldberg assurance, reminded the Bomb-Iran-Now crowd of how substantively pro-Israel is administration has been, and refused to take the Israeli/Greater Israel lobby bait:

Israel wanted Obama to give Iran a red line not to cross. I would argue he did. “I made a commitment to the American people, and said that we would use all elements of American power to pressure Iran and prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” That isn’t what Netanyahu wants to hear. As Noah Pollak incisively tweeted — yes, yes, snicker to yourselves, but he’s right — the Israelis want Iran not to be able to produce a nuclear weapon. Obama did not liquidate the disagreement.

Basically, Obama has refused to have the Greater Israel Lobby move the red lines to rendering Iran incapable of producing a nuclear weapon, rather than deciding to make one or actually making one. And this will be where the Greater Israel lobby shifts its support to the Christianist GOP, already committed to the Netanyahu-Lieberman position on Iran and the settlements, and now financed by Greater Israel fanatics, like Sheldon Adelson. (Here's a response to the Atlantic interview in an Adelson newspaper in Israel.) So no surprise to hear Liz Cheney was on a panel with this kind of reception:

Among the speakers was Liz Cheney, a former State Department official and daughter of George W. Bush's vice president. There was widespread applause for her attacks on Barack Obama including when she said the president is more interested in "containing Israel" by discouraging it from attacking Iran than blocking Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb. There was also applause when she said there was no president who had done more to "undermine and delegitimise" Israel. There were loud cheers when she predicted that the next Aipac conference will be held under a new US president.

For the worldview of Cheney and Netanyahu to prevail, Obama must be defeated. That is clearly the agenda of the current Israeli government, and what the NYT delicately but accurately calls "Israel's backers" in the US.

My worry is that once the Likudniks begin to realize Obama may not be defeated by the GOP at home, the current Israeli government would launch a war without warning to create a crisis to humiliate the president, rally end-times evangelicals to vote, send oil prices soaring, and force the US president to coopt a war he does not want and does not yet believe is necessary. If that helps the GOP nominee, so much the better. Every GOP candidate is now committed to the most extreme positions of the Likudnik Israeli right – and are to the bellicose right of most Israelis.

I hope that the Israeli government is not that reckless or extreme. But ask yourself when thinking about Netanyahu: what would Cheney do? These individuals are radicals. They turned the US into a torturing nation and regarded that decision as a "no-brainer." A "wag-the-dog" scenario in which Netanyahu creates a war to wound and weaken a US president before an election is, sadly, not unthinkable. And he will have the GOP as his critical back-up.

(Photo: Jewel Samad/Getty.)