Not too many lobbies can score all three candidates to their annual convention. AIPAC can and does.

AIPAC's #1 agenda item is Iran. No other issue comes close. It will expect the candidates to echo Bush's language at the Knesset. Will they do it, knowing how badly that language plays with the rest of the country?

I'll be following this closely. I hope Obama will tell AIPAC that he intends to pursue negotiations with Iran, for our sake and Israel's. That is what he has been saying these past few days and AIPAC, more than most, needs to hear it. If he tells them that, he could be booed like Speaker Pelosi was last year. It didn't hurt her; it wouldn't hurt him.

We'll see. In the meantime, the candidates can study AIPAC's new 2008 promotional video to see what goes over with that crowd.

And IF YOU CALL NOW, you get AIPAC's greatest hits, The John Hagee Video Series. Yes, JOHN HAGEE keynoting AIPAC last year. Start with RAPTURE NUMBER 1 which includes AIPAC delegates swooning "I love you. I love you" as Hagee bashes Democras and liberals and HITLER. It's a classic.

Also, THANK YOU, OH GREAT ONE. The inimitable JJESUS WALKS AT AIPAC . PART 2. with wonderful THANK YOU LADY GOING NUTS.

AND PART 3, I DANCE THE AIPAC HORA WITH MY TORAH.

These are classics. Don't miss a munute. Have alcohol or your favorite recreational drug nearby. You'll need them.

If I did not know better I would think that there is some conspiracy out there to produce an anti-Semitic backlash in a country, this country, that has been relatively free of that scourge since its founding.

Think about it. President Bush went to Israel to celebrate its 60th anniversary, a nice gesture and one in keeping with a President who personal proclivities are strongly pro-Israel even if his policies have not done Israel much good.

He used his visit there not just to salute our friend and ally but to promote confrontation with Iran, an idea that is utterly unpopular in the United States (to put it mildly) but is an applause producer in Israel. In fact, he went before the Israeli Knesset to denounce Americans who favor negotiations with Iran before resorting to war. He was clearly referring to Sen. Obama although Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates hold the same views and they work for Bush!

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I know I'm breaking TPM rules by using my space to link to another Cafe piece.

But I have to do it. Everybody needs to read Todd Gitlin's report about the cheerleading conference on war with Iran that is taking place in Israel. The whole war party is there, even President Bush.

Upon landing in Israel, Bush said he had a gift for Olmert and Peres but he could not reveal what it is for security reasons. But I can tell you.

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Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for finding this.

Watching Rosemary Watson helps this Obamaniac even feel some sympathy for the former next President. She is absolutely brilliant.

They are all great. Start with this old one from Iowa and then the rest.

The possibility of eight years of watching this woman is another reason I'm for Hillary for Veep.

I can't help myself.

I can't help but think that Obama-Clinton is the dream ticket. No, not because Hillary is my second favorite Democrat. She isn't.

But I doubt Lyndon Johnson was the Kennedy people's second favorite either. The name of the game is winning. We have to get every Democrat energized for this election and shut the door on any possibility that John McCain and endless war will win.

I'm not saying she deserves to be VP. I'm saying that I can't think of a stronger ticket.

Am I wrong? No way.

I previously referenced this interview in my Cafe piece on Joe Lieberman's smear about Obama and Hamas.

But I want to comment on it independent of that silliness.

This is a great interview about Israel. That is not because Obama says the kind of things I would say about Israel and the Palestinians. I would be far more critical of Israeli policies than he is and far more sympathetic to the legitimate needs of the Palestinian people.

But this is a very different statement than one sees from most candidates. And I'll tell you why.

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So now Lieberman is putting out the line that a Hamas "endorsement" of Obama is the same as an Obama endorsement of Hamas.

I'm not going to argue about the illogic of Lieberman's statement. Or its sheer obscenity. If Obama is such a Hamas man, why did Lieberman demand (and get) his endorsement over Lamont in lhis 2006 primary.

It's a stupid, ugly and obscene statement.

But the worst thing about it is that it hurts American Jews and Israel. Joe Lieberman is the most prominent American Jewish politician. He is the only Jew to have ever been nominated on a national ticket. He is, by definition, a national figure.

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