I loved the Petraeus ad, because it gives us a good window into who throws progressives under the bus when someone actually challenges power. Here's Chuck Todd, political analyst with NBC.
MoveOn is sort of like this old friend of the Democratic Party. It's as if it's, you know, your, your teen - your - a friend of yours from high school, and you don't mind hanging out with them back in high school, and then they keep showing up at your parties, and they get a little drunk and obnoxious, but you'll still - you're afraid to criticize them because they know too much about you or something.
Moveon's 3 million members are children. Get it? And here's liberal columnist Frank Rich:
Americans are looking for leadership, somewhere, anywhere. At least one of the Democratic presidential contenders might have shown the guts to soundly slap the "General Betray-Us" headline on the ad placed by MoveOn.org in The Times, if only to deflate a counterproductive distraction. This left-wing brand of juvenile name-calling is as witless as the "Defeatocrats" and "cut and run" McCarthyism from the right; it at once undermined the serious charges against the data in the Petraeus progress report (including those charges in the same MoveOn ad) and allowed the war's cheerleaders to hyperventilate about a sideshow. "General Betray-Us" gave Republicans a furlough to avoid ownership of an Iraq policy that now has us supporting both sides of the Shiite-vs.-Sunni blood bath while simultaneously shutting America's doors on the millions of Iraqi refugees the blood bath has so far created.
It's also past time for the Democratic presidential candidates to stop getting bogged down in bickering about who has the faster timeline for withdrawal or the more enforceable deadline. Every one of these plans is academic anyway as long as Mr. Bush has a veto pen. The security of America is more important - dare one say it? - than trying to outpander one another in Iowa and New Hampshire.
I don't know where to start on Rich. He uses all the slurs to go after a Moveon ad while conceding that the charges in the ad are factually correct. Then he goes on to argue that any attempts to propose a responsible timeline for withdrawal from Iraq is pandering and sacrificing America's security. And finally, he finishes with a rousing allusion to McCarthyism, as if an ad taken out in the New York Times questioning the integrity of a political leader in uniform based on factual evidence is the equivalent of a Senator using his subpoena power and the power of the state to terrorize thousands with baseless accusations of treason.
Though their work is often good, both Rich and Todd are acting here like lapdogs to the Georgetown cocktail circuit. And it's moments like this that matter, when the political system is actually under pressure. It's really sad to see 'journalists' or liberal columnists discuss the ad as if it overshadows the issue at hand, which is a horrific occupation and a civilian and military leadership that betrays the country by justifying it. .
