It's a beautiful sunny day in Meriden, CT and as I pulled into the Sheraton Hotel and made my way to Lamont blogger HQ, the first thing I heard is that the Lieberman campaign managed to lose their web site last night and that they're blaming Ned Lamont's campaign for the nefarious act.
So far their ludicrous and pathetic allegations have gotten over five straight minutes on CNN today, MSNBC has picked up the "story" and the Associated Press is reporting on it as well.
"If Ned Lamont has a backbone in his body, he will call on these people to cease and desist," Lieberman Barking Head Sean Smith said. "Voters cannot go to our Web site. They cannot access information. It is a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise voters."
Marion Steinfels, a Lieberman campaign spokeswoman said that the attack was a denial of service attack designed by the Lamont team to bring down joe2006.com.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I do not blog for a living. My corporate day job -- hey, the bills must be paid -- is as head of Internet Security for a major ad agency in New York City. I have 20 years of computer security background and I can tell you a couple of things as a matter of fact about this incident.
If Lieberman's people or his Internet service provider have tracked down the attack enough to blame it on Ned Lamont, they must, as a matter of technical fact, know something about who launched the action and from where. If this is true, why don't they just go arrest this person and clear all of this up?
Where's the proof?
Second, if it really is a denial of service attack -- in which a web site is bombarded with so much traffic that legitimate users cannot get through -- and Lieberman's techies are not actually sitting in the room where the server is located, how can they put up their little update notices that we have sporadically seen? If people on the web can't remotely get to the Lieberman site, neither can they.
Earth to Team Joe: At least get your goofy story straight before you lob it out there.
So their entire claim doesn't withstand even the most minimal technical scrutiny.
But to save the Lieberman campaign time -- after all, they are kinda, sorta fellow Democrats -- I'm going to provide you with their Lamont accusations from now until the Connecticut polls close at 8:00 PM EDT.
3:00. Joe will be locked out of his campaign vehicle and, despite seeing the keys that a staffer left inside the lobbyist-provided SUV, will demand that "Ned Lamont stop these attacks on my campaign vehicle fleet."
4:00. As the heat of the day hits its peak, Lieberman campaign headquarters will begin to get uncomfortably warm. "Hey, we only have three volunteers in this entire place," Marion Steinfels will say. "Ned Lamont has shut off our air conditioning again and we call on him to stop these denial-of-cooling attacks."
5:00: Hadassah Lieberman will discover that their dog "President W.," has fleas. The Lieberman family will demand to know why Lamont will not disclose campaign donations from the Flea Anti-Defamation League.
6:00: Ice in the Styrofoam cooler holding the 12-pack of beer for Joe's post-election crowd of five will begin to melt. "My opponent can't claim he doesn't know anything about this," Lieberman will moan. "Does he expect the people of Connecticut to believe this ice simply melted by itself?"
7:00: Lieberman will slip going up the stairs to the stage at his final campaign rally. Spokesman Sean Smith will claim that Lieberman staffers saw someone wearing a Lamont t-shirt fleeing the scene with a jug of "Acme Axle Grease."
8:00: A prank call from someone claiming to be George W. Bush will come in to Lieberman's cell phone and offer Joe the job of Secretary of Defense when he loses tonight.
"This is yet another cruel trick by Ned Lamont," Joe will say mournfully. "To try to fool me about the job I really want, is such a low blow."
You can reach Bob Geiger at geiger.bob@gmail.com
Update:
Lieberman Camp Now Admits No Evidence in Accusing Lamont
After 24 hours of making baseless accusations to the contrary, the Lieberman campaign has now admitted that they have no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the campaign of Ned Lamont had anything to do with the crash of their web site, joe2006.com.
Sean Smith and Marion Seinfels, two talking heads for the Lieberman campaign, have spent the last day accusing Ned Lamont's team of doing everything from hacking their web site to attempting to bring down the East Coast power grid -- but it looks like they were just grasping at straws and making stuff up.
Asked by Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe if the Lieberman camp had any idea who might be behind the alleged attacks on their web site, spokesman Dan Gerstein said simply ""We don't."
Sargent asked Gerstein directly if they had any proof at all that Lamont or his backers were behind the attacks on the Lieberman site.
"Here's the thing. We are not putting the blame on the Lamont campaign," said Gerstein. "We think it's very important for them to put out a statement throughout the Net roots that they not only don't support these tactics, but want them to stop."
Many bloggers are suggesting that Lieberman only being willing to dip into his massive campaign budget for $15 a month worth of web hosting, may have something to do with the lousy service.
I don't care so much about that.
I just want to know if Joe Lieberman is going to apologize to Ned Lamont for all the false accusations before or after the polls close tonight.