Following the fatal shooting at Seattle’s Jewish federation, we learn from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

Seattle was one of 18 cities that has received $14 million from the Department of Homeland Security’s 2005 budget to provide security for at-risk nonprofit groups. Virtually all the money is earmarked for enhanced security at Jewish organizations.

An additional $11 million from that budget, along with $25 million promised for 2006, has yet to be disbursed, and the 2007 budget is still being decided.

William Daroff, vice president for public policy at the United Jewish Communities and the group’s top Washington lobbyist, said that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff pledged three weeks ago to release the 2006 funds, but nothing has happened yet.

When they’re not blaming Israel for the war, everyone blames Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Arab leaders don’t seem to share blame for the conflict. Rather than take the easy way out and wonder whether Israeli military actions will breed the next generation of terrorists, perhaps we should consider why the war hasn’t by now brought forward in the Arab world a peace-maker liker Anwar Sadat.

The Jerusalem Post notes that Israeli opposition leader Bibi Netanyahu has given dozens of interviews since the Mideast war began to CNN, Fox News, Sky News and the BBC:

Rating the foreign news networks, Netanyahu said that the American Fox News Network was the most favorable to Israel and the BBC was the worst. He said there were good and bad interviewers at every network and he did not want to generalize, but that at the BBC, some of his interlocutors were “needlessly nasty.”

There was a time when the BBC wasn’t so nasty. In fact, the first BBC anchors famously wore tuxedos on air, to prove, in their estimation, how formally important their news was.

Insidecable reports CNN is announcing an initiative for “citizen journalism” — “users send in digital audio and video from breaking news events in their region.”

Sad day for Extreme Mortman — and lovers everywhere of great D.C. political hangouts.

We learn from today’s Washington Post that A.V. Ristorante — a joint that features fabulous political and media celebrities and even more fabulous white pizza, plus the only opera jukebox in town — soon will be no more:

D.C. developer Douglas Jemal said he bought the land that A.V. Ristorante Italiano occupies and is working to buy the rest of the block at New York Avenue and Seventh Street NW. He said he would like to put offices and retail on the site, much as he did on the block of Seventh Street NW across from Verizon Center.  Jemal wouldn’t say how much he paid for the restaurant, a neighborhood institution that was started in 1949 by Augusto Vasaio and remained in his family.

A.V. closes  October 2007.  We’ll be wiping the sauce stains off our ties long after that.

A “Good Morning America” reporter said this morning that Israel’s Qana bomb was “most likely” made in America.

Most likely?  Either it was or it wasn’t.  In this super-heated environment, there should be room for no qualified speculating, just reporting.

From today’s Post:

Annan’s appeal to members was calculated to prod the United States — which has backed Israel’s operation in Lebanon — to reverse course in opposing an immediate cease-fire. Annan was joined in that call by an unexpected voice: Ann M. Veneman, a former member of President Bush’s Cabinet, who is executive director of UNICEF.

Also from today’s Post,  Richard Haass, who was President Bush’s first-term State Department policy planning director and who now …

leads the Council on Foreign Relations, laughed at the president’s public optimism. “An opportunity?” Haass said with an incredulous tone. “Lord, spare me. I don’t laugh a lot. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what’s Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?”

Would love to be a fly on the wall at the CFR when Haas runs into new senior fellow Michael Gerson, President Bush’s longtime speechwriter and adviser.

Mel Gibson reportedly is arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. Then he reportedly blames the Jews. He reportedly rants about “[expletive] Jews” and how “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Then he reportedly apologizes to “the deputies involved for my belligerent behavior.” No word if the deputies were [expetive] Jews.

Mel: No sweat, man. Really. Just do me a favor — if you’re gonna drink and drive, don’t get loaded on kosher wine. It’s horrible. Blecch.  I mean, after four glasses of kosher wine at Passover, I’m fit to be tied in cuffs, too.

As I’ve always said, you can have Manischewitz, or just drink the Robitussin straight out the bottle.

Sure, it’s tough to get every fact right when you’re on national TV.

But what could Howard Dean have been thinking when he said this on CNN about the speaker of the Iraqi parliament and its prime minister:

The speaker made it very clear that he literally blames Jews for beheadings and bombs, that the prime minister said that Hezbollah — or refused to condemn Hezbollah. This is $500 trillion — $500 billion of American taxpayers’ money is going into this.

$500 trillion?  How’d his mind conjure up that doozy?

The New York Times endorses Ned Lamont this morning, yet makes Sen. Joe Lieberman its quotation of the day: “I want to assure you that I’m not surprised that I am in a fight for the Democratic nomination.”

And the Washington Post? They back Lieberman.

Update: Political trivia lovers will enjoy David Broder’s point:  Liberals “helped Joe Duffey challenge Sen. Tom Dodd in Connecticut for the 1970 Democratic nomination on the Vietnam War issue, only to lose to Republican Lowell Weicker in November.”