Reuters: “Israel will not demand the immediate disarming of Hizbollah as part of a deal to end the current fighting in Lebanon, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official said on Saturday.”

Former CIA hand Ray Close, via Larry Johnson:

My source confirmed in detail the fact that intelligence being produced for the Bush Administration by the Pentagon strongly supports the thesis that Hizballah operations are directly controlled and closely managed from Teheran. My source considers this an exaggerated picture of the real situation. He believes that this assessment contributes to an unhealthy and even dangerous mindset in Washington, leading to potentially serious miscalculations and errors of judgment by President Bush and his closest advisors at this very critical time.

I try to ignore these things. But yesterday Glenn Reynolds falsely claimed I said something I simply never did. And since what he claimed I did was call for the mass and indiscriminate killing of civilians at the outset of the Iraq War, it was more than the average lapse. In fact, unless Glenn simply never read what I actually wrote, I think there is no explanation for this other than that Glenn is being willfully dishonest and quite consciously lying. I don’t even want to discuss this more since it’s so dark and shameful. But here is the March 2003 column Glenn refers to. And here are two posts at other sites — one short and another in the context of a broader argument — which explain the nature of Glenn’s false claim and dishonest intent.

Lieberman stares into the political abyss.

After my post last Saturday trumpeting Floyd Landis’ amazing performance in the Tour de France, I can’t exactly ignore his failed drug test this week, as much as I’d like to ignore the test, the Tour, and the entire sport from this point forward.

There are those, including Landis himself, warning against a rush to judgment. Fine. We’ll wait and see, though Landis himself expects his B sample to show the same elevated ratio of testosterone, at which point he will be stripped of his win in the Tour. As I understand it, the definitive test will be an analysis of whether the testosterone in his system was natural or synthetic, a test which may not be completed for some time.

Yeah, that’s what I love about the Tour: alpine vistas, fields of lavender, and carbon isotope ratios.

I think I’ll dull my pain with something French and authentic, like a bottle of Pernod.

NYT endorses Ned Lamont . . .

More at TPMCafe’s Election Central.

And here’s how The Times first dropped the bombshell, in a straight news piece on the Lamont-Lieberman race:

[The New York Times, in an editorial published on Sunday, endorsed Mr. Lamont over Mr. Lieberman, arguing that the senator had offered the nation a “warped version of bipartisanship” in his dealings with President Bush on national security.]

More to come . . .

In a sign of election year desperation, the GOP House early today passed a $2.10 increase (over three years) in the minimum wage. But not to be completely outdone, they tacked on an estate tax cut to the same bill, along with some other tax reduction goodies.

As Kevin Drum noted, dryly: “Clearly, the Republican Party is the party of common sense. After all, if you give a few hundred dollars a month to the poorest of the working poor, it’s only fair that you also give several million dollars to the richest of the idle rich.”

“You have seen us outfox you on this issue tonight,” crowed Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN) to Democrats on the House floor.

Those clever House Republicans. What will they think of next?

For those MZM-oholics among you, here’s video of the grand opening of the MZM facility in Martinsville, Va., less than two years ago, complete with remarks from Richard Berglund, Rep. Virgil Goode, and Mitchell Wade himself. Oh, the heady days of ribbon-cuttings and campaign contributions. The MZM facility shuts its doors for good on Monday.

Mission accomplished?

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared victory on Saturday after Israel announced it was withdrawing its forces from the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbail where Israeli troops found unexpected difficulty in dislodging the guerrilla group from its strongholds.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev defended the decision to pull troops from Bint Jbeil, saying Israel had never intended to occupy the town, but Nasrallah’s quick declaration of victory underscored the propaganda gains Hezbollah is reaping across the Muslim world as it battles Israel to a stalemate.

The last time I recall the U.S. seeming this ineffectual was following Jimmy Carter’s failed attempt to rescue the American hostages in Tehran in 1980.

Is it unspeakable?

You probably know that Mel Gibson was picked up last night on a DUI arrest outside LA.

Earlier today a number of readers sent me this story at TMZ.com which alleges that Gibson resisted arrest and among other things went on tirade against Jews. From the site …

Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, “You mother f****r. I’m going to f*** you.” The report also says “Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he ‘owns Malibu’ and will spend all of his money to ‘get even’ with me.”

The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: “F*****g Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Gibson then asked the deputy, “Are you a Jew?”

Now, I wasn’t familiar with this site. So I didn’t know what to make of it. What the site alleges is that the arresting officer wrote up a detailed report from which the alleged quotes above come. But the police brass thought its contents were too inflammatory. And a sanitized version of the police report was then prepared. The site published what it claims is the original suppressed report here.

Now, as I said above, I’m not familiar with the site. But this evening TPM Reader EG sent in this AP story reporting that Gibson’s publicist has now released a statement in which Gibson says, inter alios, “I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable.”

What the AP doesn’t give any clue about is what these “despicable” statements might have been.

And you have to ask, why? Given what we know now, and now Gibson’s cryptic apology, it really sounds like the TMZ story is probably on the mark. So why won’t the AP touch that part of the story? CNN doesn’t mention it either. People do say all sort of things when they’re crazy drunk. But with Gibson, there’s a history.