For those who haven't read Jeffrey Goldberg's New Yorker profile of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), it's a defining portrait of a man who finds it lonely in the Senate -- where, he says, “a lot of Democrats are essentially pacifists and somewhat isolationist" -- and, one has to think, lonely at the movies:

Lieberman likes expressions of American power. A few years ago, I was in a movie theatre in Washington when I noticed Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, a few seats down. The film was “Behind Enemy Lines,” in which Owen Wilson plays a U.S. pilot shot down in Bosnia. Whenever the American military scored an onscreen hit, Lieberman pumped his fist and said, “Yeah!” and “All right!”

But Goldberg doesn't quite penetrate the possibly impenetrable veneer of Lieberman's persona, a man who claims that he "can't explain why" Democrats might be upset when Lieberman accuses them of giving comfort to the enemy by opposing the administration's plans for escalation in Iraq.

Unsurprisingly, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) does perhaps the best job:

McCain told me that one explanation for Lieberman’s obdurate support for the President was politics. Lieberman, he implied, had invested too much in his advocacy of the war to back away now. “It might be that Joe was assaulted so harshly in the campaign that he felt that if he showed any chink in his armor, people would exploit it,” he said. “You could do the commercial yourself.”

Note: Perhaps the best clue of how Lieberman sees himself was lost on me. If anyone can explain in comments Lieberman's remark "I'm the Lorax... I'm saving that one tree" (referring to Dr. Seuss' lorax, I gather), I'd appreciate it.

During Gen. David Petraeus' hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee today, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) took time out to "make a plea to [his] colleagues in the Senate" to "put the brakes" on the gathering bipartisan momentum for a nonbinding resolution condemning the president's plan to increase troops in Iraq.

The Senate should "step back for a moment and give you [Gen. Petraeus] a chance…. Perhaps a last chance, to succeeed in Iraq," Lieberman said. "If God forbid, you are unable to succeed, then there will be plenty of time for the resolutions of disapproval or the other alternatives that have been contemplated."

We were just watching Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) talk at the American Enterprise Institute, when our collective jaw dropped as he set off on a death-defying string of historical analogies. It seems that his ability to survey our times with Churchillian clarity short-circuited:

Here's the transcript as I could best transcribe it:

There are people who have spoken of this moment in history as if it were the 30’s, and there are some parallels, I fear, there. People say the war in Iraq is comparable to the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Iraq, to the larger war against Islamist terrorism, comparable to the Spanish Civil War, to the Second World War, the late 30’s and the failure to grasp the growing threat of fascism in Europe until it was almost too late. The painful irony of this moment in our history, is that while in some senses it is comparable to the 1930’s, it’s also already 1942. Because Pearl Harbor [9/11], in this war, has already happened.

Joe Lieberman's web site crashed the day of the Democratic primary. Lieberman's camp swiftly leveled accusations that Ned Lamont's supporters were behind it. There were strong indications, however, that the Lieberman campaign's techies were just cheap... and incompetent. The feds launched an investigation. Since then, nothing.

And now, they're done. The conclusion?

"The investigation has revealed no evidence the problems the Web site experienced were the result of criminal conduct," Tom Carson, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor, said Tuesday.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal confirmed the joint investigation "found no evidence of tampering or sabotage warranting civil action by my office."

As we flagged at the time (though there is no direct evidence of this and no indication the FBI is pursuing it), if the Lieberman campaign knew that the site had not been hacked when they lodged the complaint with the FBI, that would be a crime.

Here's something curious, first pointed out by the blog run by the campaign for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont: Despite claims from Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) re-election campaign that on Monday a hacker brought down their Web site and email service, they managed to send out on Tuesday morning a mass e-mail invitation for a Lieberman "victory" party later that day.

Until just recently, Lieberman's Web site carried a statement posted Tuesday quoting since-fired campaign manager Sean Smith saying, "For the past 24 hours the Friends for Joe Lieberman's website and e-mail has been totally disrupted and disabled [and] we believe that this is the result of a coordinated attack by our political opponents." The downed e-mail was confirmed by the campaign's internet consultant.

A sheepish note: we received a copy of the email Lamont's blog cites, but didn't bother to check it until we saw that post. But what do you know, plain as day -- the email was sent from the "joe2006.com" domain, which was purportedly down; it's dated Tuesday morning, when the service was supposedly unavailable; and it was sent by Sean "our e-mail is totally disrupted" Smith. Take a look:

You can see a PDF of the full email here.

And now that I go back and read it, a Tuesday story from CNN.com contains an odd note:

"This type of dirty politics has been a staple of the Lamont campaign from the beginning, from the nonstop personal attacks to the intimidation tactics and offensive displays to these coordinated efforts to disable our Web site," said [campaign manager Sean] Smith in a statement e-mailed to reporters Monday evening.

A curious turn of events. Was the service not down, but merely sporadic? Was it up for several hours on Monday evening and Tuesday morning, but down before and after?

Unfortunately, as I noted below, neither the Lieberman campaign nor their technologists are returning my calls. As soon as I hear from someone, I'll post their comments. It would be helpful to hear their side of this story.

Update: After receiving emails from several readers, we took a look at the detailed header information included in the email. It seems to show the email coming from "bluehornet.com," a marketing email service. Perhaps the email was sent through them? Full header info after the jump.

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Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) re-election campaign Web site is still down. Although, to their credit, readers are no longer given an out-of-date and inaccurate statement from now-departed campaign manager Sean Smith.

Has anyone figured out what happened to the site? Days later, why is it still down? They don't want to tell me: His campaign has yet to return several phone calls I've made over the past two days. His internet consultants and host company, who once spoke at length about the situation, are similarly silent.

As we know, Conn. Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont has flatly and repeatedly denied allegations by Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) camp that he or his campaign were in any way responsible for what Lieberman is calling a hacker attack on his Web site and email.

Yesterday, two experienced D.C. consultants spoke with me about questions some have raised about the professionalism of Lieberman's technology consultants. The campaign hosted its site on a "shared" server with over 70 other sites, when it should have had its own machine, skeptical observers have charged; the level of traffic the site could receive was capped, so heavy traffic would allegedly shut it down; some said the software used by the consultants was nonstandard and indicitave of less-than-expert personnel; others faulted the campaign's dependence on companies which were not large, established organizations.

Was Lieberman really hacked? There's evidence that something happened to Lieberman's internet services, but days later, it's not clear what occurred or why. (Lieberman's spokesman acknowledged to TPMCafe.com on Tuesday that, despite comments made by Lieberman's campaign manager Sean Smith (who was fired yesterday), they had no evidence Lamont or his campaign was behind the troubles.)

Lieberman's technicians stand by their original diagnosis: the campaign's site, joe2006.com, and its email were interrupted because of malicious tampering by an outsider.

I spoke with senior executives from two of the top internet consulting firms in Washington, D.C. to get their opinions on Joe's setup.

Todd Zeigler is senior vice president of the Bivings Group. His company has produced Web sites for such prominent GOP outfits as the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. (Both men said their firms have no involvement in the Connecticut U.S. Senate race.)

From the other side of the aisle, Justin Pinder is chief technology officer for EchoDitto, a Democratic firm which has handled high-profile internet campaigns for the likes of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D), and Montana Democratic Senate candidate Jon Tester -- though their most high-traffic site, by far, is Rosie O'Donnell's blog.

Would you host a site for a campaign of this magnitude on a shared server?

Ziegler: For a site of this profile, we would always recommend a dedicated server. Having a secure server makes it much easier to protect yourself from these sorts of attacks, and respond effectively [if] an attack takes place.

Pinder: As EchoDitto's best practice, we'd never host a campaign [site] -- one so high-volume, especially a week before the primary -- on a shared host like that. It doesn't seem like a particularly grand idea.

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I've spoken at length with the two men closest to Sen. Joe Lieberman's ((D/I?)-CT) re-election Web site, joe2006.com, to understand at length what happened to the site yesterday morning. Their versions appear to differ, although it's not immediately clear why. Sam Hubbell, proprietor of myhostcamp.com, which hosted the site, is more involved in the health of the server than Dan Geary, who designed the site and interfaces with the campaign.

Geary runs a small web consulting shop -- not much bigger than himself -- in Nevada, and sometimes uses Hubbell for design work, he told me when we spoke yesterday evening. For his part, Hubbell -- whom I spoke with this afternoon -- told me that myhostcamp.com consists of himself, a co-owner, and fewer than 10 servers located at a facility in Texas. Support, he said, is mostly handled by the Texas facility, Server Matrix.

So, guys, what happened?

On Monday morning, Dan told me, "It was as if suddenly all these people showed up to hit the video files. . . but it was everywhere, emails, FTP access."

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I spoke with David Straretz in the Las Vegas FBI field office this morning. He couldn't confirm the bureau was looking into Lieberman's hacking claims -- "We don't confirm or deny whether we're investigating any particular allegation or case. It's just a matter of our policy" -- but he had some interesting information.

Lieberman's independent web consultant yesterday told me about a conversation he had with an FBI agent about the hacking claims; Straretz confirmed that bureau agents don't do that kind of thing out of curiosity. "We've got enough work, agents aren't just going to make calls," he said. "If we have a lawful investigation, an agent will carry out his or her duties as assigned."

Importantly, Straretz noted that if Lieberman "hacking" charges prove false, the FBI and federal prosecutors could pursue charges against those who reported them. "If it was fabricated and you could prove intent, there's Title 18, Section 1001, which is providing false statements to an FBI agent. That can be prosecuted at the discretion of the U.S. Attorney's Office."

We're still trying to track down details of the alleged "hack" and confirm the specs of Lieberman's hosting setup; more as it develops.

The FBI has begun inquiring into allegations that a Web site and email services belonging to Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D) re-election campaign were maliciously tampered with on the eve of Tuesday's primary election, according to two senior employees at technology firms involved in handling the candidate's internet services.

The employees also confirmed that the Lieberman campaign had a contract for robust service allowing them several hundred gigabytes of data transfer per month, not a cheaper plan reported previously elsewhere.

Meanwhile, an old web contractor for the Lieberman campaign who claims no involvement in the fiasco has engaged lawyers to address issues with at least one blog which mentioned it in connection to the mess.

Lieberman's camp, whose candidate has since conceded the primary election to challenger Ned Lamont, charged Monday that the Lamont campaign was responsible for alleged cyberattacks which they said brought down their primary web site and email services. Such "dirty politics" were "a staple" of its operations, asserted Lieberman campaign manager Sean Smith. Later, Lieberman spokesman Dan Gerstein admitted to TPM's Greg Sargent that Lieberman's staff had no evidence Lamont's campaign was behind the alleged attacks.

Dan Geary, the Nevada-based web consultant for the Lieberman campaign, confirmed Tuesday that the FBI had contacted him, and he was in the process of providing them with all of his company's server files relating to the hacked site, joe2006.com.

"We're wrapping up all the server files for them right now," Geary said. Samuel Hubbell, owner of the hosting firm myhostcamp.com, which Geary used for the Lieberman site, confirmed this. My call to the FBI's Las Vegas office was not immediately returned.

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This is either ironic or darkly comic, depending on whether or not you believe Joe Lieberman's Web site was hacked:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 26, 2005

Lieberman: Cybersecurity Lags Behind
DHS Hampered By Numerous Management Problems, GAO Finds

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said Thursday that the nation’s critical computer infrastructure remains vulnerable to criminal or terrorist attack in part because of major underlying management problems at the Department of Homeland Security. . . .

“Over a year ago, I sent a detailed letter to Secretary Ridge, raising concerns about the lack of results similar to those identified by GAO, and I am troubled that more progress has not been made in this vital area. The good news is that this report provides a further roadmap for the Department of Homeland Security to follow to help it fulfill its obligations...I strongly urge Secretary Chertoff to devote the attention and resources necessary for the Department to promptly secure our vital cyber infrastructure.”

So was the Lieberman campaign website actually hacked? Or are they just cheap?

Lieberman's internet consultant Dan Geary, who oversees Joe2006.com, says he's still sure that their site suffered a "malicious attack." But when pressed, he said that they weren't sure that it was a "Denial of Service" attack, as he'd said earlier. He didn't have any more information about the nature of the supposed attack. "I've spent 99% of my time speaking [to reporters] about the story," he said.

He also denied that the site was down because of their webhost. Over at DailyKos, Markos reported that the campaign has an agreement with a webhost service called MyHostCamp, for which the campaign pays $15/month. All MyHostCamp sites are down, Markos reported, seeming to indicate that the problem was not caused by a hacker but Lieberman's host company being unable to handle a surge in authentic traffic.

But Geary insisted that the host company was fine. "When we take the site down, the server is fine. . . [It's] not the hosting, it's not the bandwidth," he said. Geary said that all of his company's sites are on that server, and that it's owned by someone he works with "all the time."

He denied Markos' report that the campaign paid only $15 a month for service. They pay a "bit more," he said; he couldn't say precisely how much, but said he'd have that information if I called back later.

Geary admitted the campaign's technical staff wasn't prepared to deal with a malicious intruder. "We have nobody with a security background helping with this," Geary told me. "It's just us, what we know, how we work with our server network."

Earlier today, the Lamont campaign said in a statement, "If Senator Lieberman’s website was indeed hacked, we had absolutely no part in it, denounce the action, and urge whoever is responsible cease and desist immediately," and offered their technical expertise and support to get the Joe2006.com site back up.

Geary, who's based in Nevada, was unaware of the Lamont campaign's offer of assistance.

Update: The Lamont campaign is now linking to a Google-cached version of the joe2006.com site.

Greg over at Election Central:

I just got off the phone with top Joe Lieberman adviser Dan Gerstein, and he acknowledged to me that the Lieberman camp doesn't have any evidence that the Lamont campaign -- or Lamont supporters -- are behind the hack attack on the Lieberman campaign web site.

Asked if the Lieberman campaign had any idea who might be behind the attacks, Gerstein said: "We don't."

Gerstein said earlier, "Their supporters are doing these [attacks], we've demanded they get them to stop and they refuse to do it."

Lamont's campaign earlier denied any involvement in the attack.

The Connecticut Attorney General has released a statement saying that his office will investigate the alleged hacking of Lieberman's campaign web site:

“I have received a complaint from Sen. Lieberman’s campaign asking my office to investigate the hacking of his campaign web site. I will investigate potential violations of anti-hacking provisions of our state computer crimes laws that are specifically within my jurisdiction. I will also work with the State Elections Enforcement Commission, and state and federal criminal authorities concerning possible violations of state election statutes, and federal election protections and other laws. We will seek civil and criminal penalties, where appropriate.”

Tom Carson, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Connecticut, confirmed that his office had also received a criminal complaint from the Lieberman campaign regarding what they termed attacks on their site, but would not comment further. A criminal complaint does not mean that the office will necessarily open an investigation.

Lieberman's spokesman said that they'd also filed a complaint with Connecticut's Chief State's Attorney. A spokesman there had no comment.

I just got off the phone with the internet consultant to Joe Lieberman's campaign, Dan Geary. And he says that the site has been "fatally compromised" by an unknown hacker. In addition, all email addresses with the Joe2006.com domain are down too; the attack, Geary says, has "disrupted the entire campaign."

Geary, who developed and oversees Lieberman's site, Joe2006.com (and says that the campaign has paid their account in full), said that an attack starting mid-morning yesterday had "red-lined" the server. "We can't even get the site up," he said. "We even tried putting up a single, blank page. It red-lined the entire network. This guy's got our number."

Geary said that they believed it to be a "denial of service" attack, meaning there are so many queries to the network that it becomes unstable. He did not have any information as to the source of the attack or any idea about the identity of the hacker. "We're just fighting to get something live," he said, "we're not security experts." He also said that it would be up to the campaign as to whether they would refer the case to the FBI.

This was not the first time that the site was attacked. Earlier, a hacker "got through one of the functions on the site," Geary said. The hacker then did a "SQL injection," ultimately replacing the index page. The front page of the site then read "We ownz you site." It was signed "thhacker."

But yesterday's and today's was a different kind of attack. Whoever the hacker is "saved the best until the last day," Geary said.

Update: Lieberman campaign spokesman Dan Gerstein says that the campaign has filed a complaint with Connecticut's Attorney General and Chief State's Attorney, and the United States Attorney's Office.

Silly me -- last night I turned off my BlackBerry so I could have a nice dinner with a friend. Was I crazy? On the eve of a hotly-disputed primary election? Surely I would miss some minor flap exploding into high-dudgeon rhetoric, as the minutes ticked away toward the poll openings across Connecticut.

Indeed, it came to pass: The Lieberman campaign's Web site became inaccessible last night. Supporters of Ned Lamont claimed it was because the Joementumizers did not pay their bill; Lieberman's camp said they were victims of a denial-of-service attack. The volleys flew from both sides, as I finished my dessert (delicious fresh peaches with ice cream), and curled up on the sofa to watch a rerun of Project Runway (her pick, not mine, I swear). What kind of reporter am I?

Awaking this morning to the controversy, I put in a call to the Lieberman campaign to find out what the deal was with their Web site.

Spokesman Dan Gerstein was quick on the draw with a few choice words for Lamont ("The Lamont campaign is once again lying in suggesting we didn't pay our bill," he said in less-than-happy tones. "That's the definition of a lie, when you tell something that's false knowingly"), a few more choice words for Lamont supporters ("Their supporters are doing these [attacks], we've demanded they get them to stop and they refuse to do it"), an almost-accurate comparison to GOP dirty tricks ("It's despicable, it's the same kind of tactics Karl Rove and his folks used to jam the phones in New Hampshire in 2000" (it was 2002, and Rove hasn't been implicated in the scam)) and, finally, a copy of an email from their Web hosting company*, which reads:

From: "Dan Geary"
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 06:05:17
To:xxxxxxxx@deweysquare.com
Subject: account status - www.joe2006.com

Hi Marion,

This note is to confirm that the suspension of displaying the website www.joe2006.com: was not due to to an overdue account. Friends of Joe Lieberman is completely paid in full. The screen that showed yesterday is a default image from the server. In order to isolate where the denial of service attack was coming into the site, we disabled it as rapidly as possible. Once we were able to isolate all the site files for study we were able to add an appropriate one-page maintenance message.

Your campaign has in fact paid every invoice submitted to it within a week and a half.

Regards,

Dan Geary

Gerstein gave me Geary's phone number to confirm the email's accuracy -- he's in Nevada, so we'll try him later this morning when his office opens. For those who did not go through a computer hacking phase when they were 12 years old: a "denial of service attack" is when a hacker directs so much traffic at a single web site, the server is overloaded and no one can access the site.

*Update: As many readers have noted, Dan Geary does not in fact work for the campaign's web host, as Gerstein indicated. Geary is an internet consultant for Geary Internet Strategies who works for the campaign.