Today At TNR (October 31, 2009)

• From Grover “Uncle Jumbo” Cleveland to Chris Christie, a History of Smearing Heavyweights in American Politics, by Dave Jamieson
• The Fork in J Street: Will the New Israel Lobby Disavow Its Extreme Left Flank? by James Kirchick
• Philadelphia Freedom: The Most Noxious Sports Fans in America Have Gone Soft, by Buzz Bissinger
• Why Gavin Newsom Dropped Out, by Joe Mathews
• A Health Care Proposal That Should Absolutely Be in the Final Bill, by Jonathan Cohn
• Who Came out of the Honduran Crisis Looking the Best? Hillary. by Francisco Toro and Juan Nagle
• What Does Joe Lieberman Really Want? by Jason Zengerle
• Why I’m Actually Optimistic About the Future of J Street, by Jonathan Chait

As always, be sure to check out economic news on The Stash, environment and energy coverage on The Vine, the latest on health care at The Treatment, metro policy debate on The Avenue, and Marty Peretz's The Spine. Also be sure to take a look at TNR's new blogs by William Galston, Simon Johnson, Ed Kilgore, Damon Linker, and John McWhorter.