This morning Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald writes an article with the headline Al Qaeda endorses Joe Lieberman.

Another quarter has been heard from in Connecticut’s senatorial race. The crucial al-Qaeda endorsement.

This pack of political activists -- thuggish, given to strongarm tactics -- just endorsed Joe Lieberman.

The Lamont crowd, narrowly victorious in Tuesday’s primary, had forgotten about this part of the body unpolitic. The part that wants to kill us.

Ned Lamont, like Cindy Sheehan and the rest of the one-issue Left, thinks the enemy is George Bush. They think George Bush is the greatest threat to world stability and individual rights. They think he is the one who wants to kill us and enslave us.

Is Crittenden channeling Anne Coulter?

Surely the headline is one that means to shock, but not enlighten. A more apt headline might be, "GOP endorses Joe Lieberman."

In Lieberman's defense, I see how he recoils from the Bush kiss (of death?). You think Lieberman is offering his ear and not his cheek. "The Pres. wants to say something over the roar of the crowd. I'll lean closer to hear ... What! He kissed me ... no wonder we need a Constitutional Amendment about the sanctity of marriage."

But that kiss was Lieberman's undoing because it embodied a closeness to the President that has haunted Lieberman.

The crucial al-Qaeda endorsement.

This pack of political activists -- thuggish, given to strongarm tactics -- just endorsed Joe Lieberman.

Don't look now, Jules, but what do you call the Bush/Lieberman exchange?

Lieberman is likable enough and might stand a chance, so he doesn't need the "help" of Crittenden's smear of Lamont, or of "Cindy Sheehan and the rest of the one-issue Left." No mention of Alan Schlesinger, the candidate who'll bear the colors for the GOP.

And yet, in this odd turn of events, where Lieberman cannot seem to bear the news that he was beaten in the primary, the Connecticut senator soldiers on because some sort of internal guidance system has taken over. The game plan called for Lieberman to run for re-election and Joe simply has not gotten a grasp of the facts.

In the meantime as the right runs to Joe's side, Lieberman is tapped in a Byzantine drama that has all the makings of a tragedy. As the old saying goes, "with friends like the GOP, who needs enemies."