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This is all really getting a bit ridiculous.

Following Lamont's victory on Tuesday, the primary Republican talking point was that, essentially, the Democrats had become the party of terrorist sympathizers. Never mind, of course, that Lamont's position mirrors that of a solid majority of Americans. No, no. A Lamont win means, well... the end of civilization as we know it.

First VP Cheney said it, then said it, then Tom DeLay said it, then Guilliani and the RNC said it in a fundraising appeal, and well... I think you get the point.

But as bad as those are, today's entries just take the cake.

First up comes CNN Headline News anchor Chuck Roberts. ThinkProgress has the video. But reading it should be enough:

“How does this factor into the Lieberman/Lamont contest? And might some argue, as some have, that Lamont is the al Qaeda candidate?”

Who, precisely, are the "some" that have argued this? And why does Roberts feel he needs to repeat what "they" have said without identifying who "they" are? this is Headline News we're talking about. Shouldn't the man at least stick to the headlines?

But that's not even the worst of it. Check out what Joe Lieberman - yes, that Joe Lieberman - said today:

"I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us -- more evil, or as evil, as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet Communists we fought during the long Cold War,"

The man done lost his mind. This is how he plans to save the Democratic Party from extremism? By not just parroting Republican talking points, but by carrying them one step further? This is how the self-appointed guardian of bipartisanship has decided to respond?

More dangerous than Nazism? He cannot be serious about this, can he? And if he is, if Islamic terrorism truly is as much of an existential threat as either of these examples, does he really believe that the way we are fighting is equal to the threat? Because if he's right, if we are really facing that kind of threat, and if this really is the best we can do in the face of it, god help us. If he believes this nonsense, why hasn't he called for a draft? If he believes this, why hasn't he worked to mobilize the entire nation to fight WWIII? If he believes this, why hasn't he called for each and every one of us to sacrifice in the very same ways we did back in WWII? To my knowledge, all he's suggested so far is that we, a) "stay the course," and b) stop criticizing the president, no matter how badly he mismanages the conduct of the war. In Joe's world, fighting for fighting's sake is apparently the goal. It doesn't matter who or how we fight, so long as we do.

All of this hyperventilating is based, of course, on the idea that the Democratic Party has been "taken over" by "extermists." So I can't help but wonder... what precisely does he and the rest of his Republican comrades make of this?

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted this week found the president's approval rating has dropped to 33 percent, matching his low in May. His handling of nearly every issue, from the Iraq war to foreign policy, contributed to the president's decline around the nation, even in the Republican-friendly South.

More sobering for the GOP are the number of voters who backed Bush in 2004 who are ready to vote Democratic in the fall's congressional elections — 19 percent. These one-time Bush voters are more likely to be female, self-described moderates, low- to middle-income and from the Northeast and Midwest.

Two years after giving the Republican president another term, more than half of these voters — 57 percent — disapprove of the job Bush is doing.

"The numbers ... are similar to what I'm hearing out in the streets," said Democrat Ed Perlmutter, a primary winner Tuesday in a competitive House race in Colorado. "I talked to so many people and they've had enough and want to see a change."

Or better yet, this new poll from John Zogby?

An overwhelming majority of Democrats - 79% - nationwide said they are glad that the three-term senator was defeated by Lamont, who ran a powerful anti-Iraq war campaign. They also said Lamont's victory over one of the few pro-war Democrats in Washington makes them optimistic they can win control of at least one of the two houses of Congress in November.

Our interactive survey, including interviews Wednesday and Thursday with 1,229 likely voting Democrats, also highlighted what Democrats across the country said they want to hear from their candidates--a resolute opposition to the war. More than three-quarters of Democrats (78%) said they want candidates who oppose the conflict. Just 6% said they think their Democratic candidates should support the war. Another 13% said they want their candidates to take a middling stance somewhere between support and opposition.

While Republicans may have used the war for political success in 2002 and 2004, Democrats are ready for their turn at the plate this November, and they see the defeat of Lieberman as the first step - 62% said they believe the results of the Connecticut primary will hold national implications for the elections coming up this fall.

And they expect those implications to favor them - 70% said they think the Lamont victory makes the Democratic Party stronger heading into the important election season.

As Rummy would say, "my goodness...." It really does sound like the end of the world for the Democrats, doesn't it?

UPDATE: John over at Ezra's blog has a great response to Lieberman's foolishness:

Even if we take the statement at face value, I think you'd be hard pressed to make the argument that some guys in caves are a worse evil than the criminal organization (as the Nuremberg tribunals described the Nazi Party) that systematically razed vast swaths of Europe, and waged a kind of warfare that would have made Genghis Khan blanch.

But it's the Soviet remark that is truly bizarre. The Soviet Union, for those who (like Sen. Lieberman) have forgotten, kept tens of thousands of nuclear warheads ready to utterly destroy America, Western Europe, and their allies for decades. Bin Laden wishes he had one percent of one percent of the Soviet Union's power.