The liberal Zionist group J Street says that Cotton was scripted by neoconservative Bill Kristol. Street is reveling in the letter because it is sure to drag the neoconservative rightwing Israel lobby down politically, marginalize the greater-Israel lobby in the far right wing of the Republican Party. Just as the Netanyahu speech has hurt Netanyahu and the Likud wing of the lobby, the Cotton letter is turning out to be an own-goal, scored by the neoconservatives.

The neoconservatives reached out and groomed Tom Cotton when they saw him coming down the pike. The Harvard College and Harvard Law grad spent just one term in the Congress before challenging and defeating Mark Pryor last fall. And he got tons of money then from the Israel lobby.

Neoconservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin embraced Cotton back in 2012. She was worried then that with Joe Lieberman leaving the Senate, we were losing national security hawks.

Hawks are nervous that, with the retirement of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and the demands of a fiscal crisis, fewer lawmakers will be interested in and devoted to national security.