Since when is the Israel lobby old news? Within the past few weeks we've had the Chas Freeman fiasco, the Jane Harman fiasco, and Justice's decision to drop the Rosen/Weissman case.

The spike last year can be attributed solely to a fiercely-contested presidential election, in which the media supplied coverage of every conceivable facet (including speeches before AIPAC) to satisfy a high level of interest.

and AIPAC appears to win on all counts. The espionage cases being dropped is only the latest round. Berman and Ros-Lehtinen run the House Foreign Affairs Committee, looking for "crippling sanctions" (Berman's words) against Iran, and Kerry (my own Senator) is willing to pay his homage as well.

Don't confuse lack of activity with any change of heart, but if people out there are like me, then they are demoralized. I know I am.

I wouldn't have felt this way a few months ago. The gristly pictures coming out of Gaza turned me though. I don't think the US has any business supporting this, in fact, we should be running from it as fast as we can.

wouldn't it be shocking if this WERENT the case?

wait, so you mean to tell me that fewer people googled "AIPAC" during a non-election year than when the soon-to-be first-ever African American President, an electrifying speaker dispelling rumors of Muslim faith, gave his first-ever major address on Israel-Palestine issues?

what is more galling is that Ms Lowery had gone back even one year to 2007 she would see that 2008 is the anomaly in the data set, not 2009!

even for something that purports to be shoddy-- this is really, really shoddy.

sorry.

So stretching out the trend over the five year period shows that indeed, the last time there was a large spike was during an election year.

yep, shoddy work.