And btw, where did I read the authors got a $ 700 000 advance?

The rage will not be because they were scooped, but because they are being shown to be just another part of the Lobby. I don't think we're going to see the Friedmans, Remnicks, Peretzs, Cohens, Pollacks, Goldbergs, Millers, Safires, Krauthammers, Brooks, Kristols, ad infinitum, come out and say, "Yeah, M&W are right: We used our positions of power to hobble the public discussion of Israel."

This is the same reason that the media is unable to discuss the "misuse of intelligence" in the build-up to the war. To discuss the lies behind the war, you have to be willing to discuss the truth.

Since Walt had already rebutted the points Foxman made, Foxman came across very ineffectively. His principal concern, which seems genuine, is that letting these long-in the-closet views out into the mainstream legitimizes them. Foxman's perspective, which is reflective of much of his generation, makes little sense today and only makes the problem worse.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14154082

Hi, this is Eric Fingerhut from the Washington Jewish Week. I appreciate you citing my reporting, but I must correct a few things in your post. First of all, Chris Van Hollen was elected in 2002 and that election had nothing to do with the Iraq War. In fact, his Republican opponent, incumbent Connie Morella, voted against the war. The primary reason Van Hollen won, in addition to him being a good candidate, was that Morella was a Republican (a very liberal one, but still a Republican) in a heavily Democratic district that had become even more Democratic after redistricting.

Second, Van Hollen's lettter was actually first reported by Robert Novak in a column that appeared in the Washington Post. It is true and surprising that other than my coverage, hardly anyone else wrote about the ensuing controversy, but I found out about the letter from reading Novak's column.

Third, Mearsheimer and Walt characterize Van Hollen's follow-up letter as an "apology." If you read the letter (and apparently Walt and Mearsheimer didn't), I don't think that's an accurate characterization of it at all. Van Hollen apologized for the way people interpreted the letter and for some ambiguity that may have created some confusion on a particular point, but not for anything in it. In fact, here's part of what I wrote at the time:

“I am sorry if my strong criticism of the Bush Administration’s failures has been interpreted as a criticism of Israel’s conduct in the current crisis,” he wrote. “That was certainly not my intention.”
Van Hollen’s clarification did not disavow any of his earlier statements, but primarily addressed what he called “misinterpretations” of two specific points: his suggestion that the U.S. should have asked Israel to limit its attacks to “clear, identifiable Hezbollah military assets,” and his call for an “immediate cease-fire.”
On the first point, Van Hollen noted the many times his initial letter called Israel’s attacks justified or blamed Hezbollah for civilian deaths in Lebanon.
He said that he intentionally did not use the term “disproportionate force because I believe the extent and level of force used is justified.”
Instead, he said he was suggesting that if the U.S. had asked Israel to “temporarily slow down” its offensive and used “effective diplomacy” early in the crisis when the Lebanese people and many in the Arab world were faulting Hezbollah, that group could have been politically isolated and international pressure could have been focused on Iran and Syria.
“I may be wrong about that. We will never know,” he wrote, but he points out that Arab public opinion has turned and the terrorist group is seen “as the protector of Lebanon.”
On the latter issue, Van Hollen admitted that “some ambiguity in my letter has created understandable confusion.”
He said he supported a cease-fire only accompanied by “the rapid deployment of an international force in southern Lebanon” that would allow Israeli troops to stay in place until the international force arrived — a framework similar to what was agreed to by the United Nations Security Council and both sides late last week.
He concludes the four-page statement, longer than his original three-page letter to Rice, by stating that “You may dispute certain policy conclusions that I reach, but I hope you won’t question my motivation. While we may disagree on certain points, we share the common goal of ensuring that the United States and Israel will prevail in the war on terror and in guaranteeing the long-term survival and vitality of the State of Israel.”

That strikes me as a clarification, not an apology.

Finally, I suppose I would ask you: if "The Lobby" is allegedly so intent on shutting down any criticism or debate on Israel, then why would a Jewish newspaper be the only place to report this story? Wouldn't the Jewish press be the first place to enforce the party line? Doesn't this undermine Walt and Mearsheimer's thesis?