with all the election talk, parties splitting, parties uniting, blocs forming, candidates going this way or that, one thing in particular is confounding me...

When the pundits are counting up the blocs to see who has the edge, they keep leaving the swing parties in the middle and adding them to each bloc to show who has a possible chance at forming a government.

Somehow, Avigdor Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beyteynu, keeps getting mentioned as one of those swing parties that can go either way. And that makes me scratch my head.

Didn't the Left hate Avigdor Lieberman until recently and consider him an extremist? He used to support transferring the Arabs out of Israel. He was the guy they pointed at and called an extremist. They investigated him for 17 years, and ramped it up every time he seemed to be about to break through some ceiling. And now they are courting him? He is considered a possible coalition partner for the Left?

It just makes me scratch my head.