House condemns MoveOn’s ‘Betray Us’ ad

September 26, 2007

More than two weeks after the fact, I would have been more than pleased to ignore any further discussion of MoveOn.org’s “Betray Us” ad in the New York Times, but it appears that House Republicans, fresh off their vote denying healthcare to low-income children, have finally found something they can support.

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org for a recent advertisement attacking the top U.S. general in Iraq.

By a 341-79 vote, the House passed a resolution praising the patriotism Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and condemning a MoveOn.org ad that referred to Petraeus as “General Betray Us.”

Obviously, with a 341 vote majority, quite a few Dems — in this case, 79 — joined the GOP on this condemnation resolution. Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) explained his reasoning for supporting the measure, saying that during the McCarthy era of the 1950s, Republicans were unwilling to say when one of their own was going too far.

“I’ve got an obligation to be equally upset when that kind of juvenile debate emanates from the left,” Obey said.

I’m not sure what this means. McCarthyism was about stifling dissent and undermining the patriotism of those who dared to speak up. Doesn’t Obey have this one kind of backwards?

Also, you might be wondering how the House minority managed to get this onto the floor. Republicans wanted to vote on this resolution two weeks ago, but the Democratic leadership told them to go away. What happened?

House Republicans have managed to get the measure considered in a procedural motion attached to a bill to fund the government for the next 8 weeks.

The motion “condemns in the strongest possible terms the personal attacks made by the advocacy group MoveOn.org impugning the integrity and professionalism of General David H. Petraeus.”

I imagine Republicans think they’re scoring a few cheap political points with this stunt, but I can’t help but think they’re miscalculating. The MoveOn “controversy” was a sideshow two weeks ago, and it’s really irrelevant now. House Republicans haven’t shown any interest in supporting any legislation of any kind, but they’re all passionate about a non-binding gesture that condemns a newspaper ad?

The desperation is palpable. Republicans don’t want to discuss policy, they don’t want to negotiate on legislation, they want to deny the majority any kind of legislative victories, and they’re not even keeping up with deaths of their own constituents in Iraq, but by golly they’re really unhappy with MoveOn.org.

It’s kind of sad, actually.

I’m constantly struggling with Obey. One minute he’s a champion of my causes, the next he’s dumber than a bag of hammers. “Juvenile debate”?!?! What the heck does he think this resolution was, if not juvenile debate?

  • Politeness is just hardball politics employed to box out opinions that fall beyond the spectrum of the DC prism, which sees the political world in a rose-colored monochrome.

  • The First Amendment’s takin’ a beatin’ lately!

    How the heck do you find the Roll Call votes on these things? Thomas.loc.gov is confusing!

  • It may be a sideshow, but there’s plenty of good reason for Democrats in Congress to be unhappy with MoveOn as their name-calling ad created needless blowback for them to deal with precisely when they didn’t need it.

    My advice is that if MoveOn wants to effectively advance their agenda, they should start being a whole lot smarter and more mature about it and care about how what they do affects the Democratic Party as a whole.

  • As far as I’m concerned, the First Amendment trumps the House—regardless of what a collection of unhinged twits and their gathering of cowardly quasi-Dems have to say on the MoveOn issue….

  • What can I say? Coward Commander in Chief who hid from military duty himself uses generals to talk for him. Coward congress would rather waste time with foolishness and do it’s level best to destroy free speech along with all our other civil rights.
    They ALL have to go. We need a new crew in every branch of the government.
    They disgust me. If they were doing their duty, they would be impeaching Bush/Cheney and getting our people out of Iraq.

  • Gee, what happened to free speech? Oh yeah, nowadays you can get arrested for wearing anti-Bush tee shirt. But Ann Coulter can continue on, unabated…

  • David W., the MoveOn ad was mild compared with the crap from the other side, and maybe it wasn’t perfect, but things aren’t going to be always perfect. If the Dems don’t understand who their friends are, they don’t deserve power.

    We need a party of the people.

  • The Repubs may be smarter than you think on this one CB.

    If they can get most Dems on record against MoveOn, they have pre-heated the oven for when MoveOn – by then part of a huge 527 coalition that coordinates progressive groups like ACT did last cycle – tries to advertise to help the Dems. Those ads will be condemned, they will try to have them blocked by stations – because these groups are outside of acceptable expression, and the Democrats themselves said so! Will the eventual nominee be able to accept millions of dollars raised through MoveOn or will they now have to refuse that “tainted” cash?

    The Dems were absolutely outmaneuvered on this. Again. Despite the majority.

  • CB is riding on the ultimate spin machine on this one!!! Just admit this one blew up in MoveOn’s face!

  • sagacity, the point is that MoveOn’s NY Times ad wasn’t smart thing to do in the first place. It was truly cringe-worthy in the same way that Rick Kahn was when he lost it at the late Paul Wellstone’s memorial service back in 2002, which probably cost the Democrats a Senate seat. Friends also should care about how they behave when it affects others.

    Zeitgeist is spot on about how MoveOn’s ability to help Democrats is now diminished. Blaming the Democratic Party instead of MoveOn is rather beside the point though. It does point out the peril of having 527s who are potential loose cannons collecting money to give to candidates, who may then not be able to take it.

  • JKap – It appears that it was hiding as a procedural amendment to the appropriations bill, Roll Call 910 on recommiting the appropriations extension with instructions.

    So much for transparency in Government.

  • Geez, this was a total collapse of courage. Virtually no D who ever has a serious challenge voted correctly. Even Loesback and Braley from Iowa who had both gotten nearly every tough Middle East related vote correct bailed on this one.

    Which shows that the real problem is Pelosi and her team – how she ever let us get outflanked to where there was a vote on this. Just like Reid in the Senate. We couldn’t get anything voted on when we were in the minority. How is it that our legislative leadership loses these procedural skirmishes no matter whether we have the votes or whether we don’t?

  • Zeitgeist, Democrats in Congress couldn’t just let the matter lie because like it or not MoveOn is identified with the Democratic Party. Doing nothing would have just let Republicans freely label them as agreeing with MoveOn’s stupid ad. So they swallowed bitter, if small, pill by going on record against the sentiments expressed about Petraeus by MoveOn.

  • So…

    Petraeus wants to keep American blood gushing in Iraq’s gutters, but MoveOn’s ad crossed the line?

    Such bullshit.

  • This may be cold comfort to some, but here’s how the vote in the House happened, via TPM:

    “Democrats had given no signal of allowing a vote, but using a `motion to recommit’ procedural motion, which they are automatically allowed on every bill and which does not need to be announced beforehand, Republicans forced a vote to attach the language to the continuing resolution that funds the government as a stop gap while the Senate passes the final appopriations bills.”

  • It’s an ominous sign when the government officially condemns its citizens for daring to criticize a General.

    I therefore condemn the United States House and the United States Senate, in the strongest possible terms, for their abandonment, yea one might even call it betrayal, of the right of free speech, and their cowardice in entertaining the whims of the anti-freedom forces who would prefer punishing non-conformity to doing their jobs as legislators.

    Take that, you %$^#%&ers!

  • David W – surely there is still a germaneness requirement? Couldn’t the chair have ruled the content of the attachment on the recommitment to be non-germane, requiring a supermajority to overrule the chair?

  • Zeitgeist & David W are correct on this. It doesn’t make it right, but that’s how it is. The first thing I heard the morning of the Petraeus hearing was people bitching about the moveon add. We lost the second that happened. You know how the media is, they love a Dems hate the military story. Once the Repubs trotted that out it was over. No, it shouldn’t matter, but it does.

  • Rick,

    You seem to think the only thing that kept them from discussing the Petreaus testimony was MoveOn. They ignored this stuff before progressives grew a pair. In fact, the only reason they need a Petreaus testimony at all is because they grew a pair. It hasn’t shifted public opinion at all. This is an faux, inside-the-beltway, manufactured outrage to change the topic from the failure they were all party, to.

    MoveOn didn’t step in it any more than Michael J. Fox brought it on himself because he had the shakes, or Hillary brought it on because she has female anatomy, or Edwards brought it on by being terminally ill, or her husband brought it on himself by being rich and helping the poor. There was a time when that was called philanthropy. If philanthropy can become hypocrisy, it doesn’t matter what MoveOn said. It’s people like you who make the Dems cave like this.

    This whole controversy only deserves mockery, and MoveOn should run the same ad again. Yes, people will be outraged, and they should run it again, just to make a stand and say, “Republicans may scream. Dems may condemn us with fear. Fuck you. We say what we want.” Once they can’t get a rise out of you, there’s no point any more. They only do this because it takes our eye off the ball so we can gaze at our navels.

    MoveOn isn’t any more affiliated with the DNC than the religious wack-os who protest at soldier’s funerals — yet they are called “anti-war protesters”, not conservative nutjobs the GOP should condemn.

    It’s not anything we did to bring this on. It’s the fact that we exist that they can’t stand. I, for one, shall continue taking in my share of oxygen without asking permission, thank you very much.

  • I’m sorry bit I still don’t agree with you all. The Rightwing machine looks for any fault to magnify and have the corporate media make into A Big Deal. If MoveOn didn’t do that ad, they would have found something else. And if the Dems don’t stand up and stop the bullying, the bullying will never stop. These Dems can’t manuever their way out a paper bag. Of course, the media loves a “Dems hate military” story because they are corporate hacks. One o fthe reasons the Dems keep looking weak (on national security as well as everything else) is that they can’t even stand up and fight back the Republicans.

  • From Freeman Dyson’s book ‘The Scientist As Rebel’, “the honoring of military leaders brings deadly danger to mankind unless both the moral authority granted to them and the technical means at their disposal are strictly limited. Military power should never be confused with moral virtue…A successful general should be honored no more or less than a successful boxer.”

  • My response was to donate, for the first time, to MoveOn. I am tired of walking on tippie toes around the Republicans. If this sends them into vapours, then we should do it six times a day and shortcircuit them.

    General Betray Us does not have my respect.

  • You know you’ve really got your partisan blinders on when you can’t acknowledge that behavior you would condemn in your adversaries is even the least bit disagreeable coming from someone on your own side. Take that MoveOn ad, change the name in the headline to Cleeland or Clark, change the logo to Club for Growth or those swiftboat people and then see how you like it. And any time your only real defense for an action is “They started it,” then juvenile is probably a pretty good word.

    That ad was also a near criminally stupid move from a tactical standpoint. If the question is, would the Republicans rather talk about this than the disastrous consequences of their own failed policies, the answer is DUH!

  • CalD – I agree with you that what MoveOn did wasn’t very well thought out. It was a tactical mistake. Those happen, and for that matter allies may have different ideas of where the “line” is on appropriate strategy. But the Dems were just as tactically inept to be drawn into a wedged fight with one of their best, most active allies in public. If Howard Dean, Chuck Shumer and Rahm Immanuel want to meet privately with Eli Pariser about their concerns, that would make a lot of sense and be how adults handle things. Heck, individual Dems could even state their disagreement with the ad itself publicly for all I care. But having the Congress officially condemn one of your allies with your blessing is a good formula for not having allies. Yes, we should be able to say when our side oversteps, just like we recognize it in others. But until the Rethugs have Congress officially condemn the SwiftBoat Vets and Karl Rove (and Lee Atwater, in memoriam) and agree to undo the results of the 2004 election that those tactics won them, this is still politics and that recognition of MoveOn’s error has to be handled in a politically sensitive manner.

  • Well, CalD, the point is, they DO say those things about Clealand or Clark, and the punditocracy thinks that’s a totally acceptable position for very serious people to take. It’s only when MoveOn joins the game that they get the vapors. Roshambo — I go first! (WHAM!) I’m bored of this game. Wanna play Monopoly? We can play Roshambo again tomorrow! No wonder they attack our patriotism. They’re the only ones who get to attack.

    I tried convincing the media they ought to condemn this stuff and stop facilitating the McCarthyism, but they want it. They love it. They want more of it, and will punish any pussy who tries to take the high road. So it’s us getting kicked in the nuts, hoping our pain will eventually spark some empathy, when all everyone really does is say, “Gosh, I wish those two would stop fighting!”

    And so it goes.

    I’m not for attacking people’s patriotism. I’m for ending the double standard. I swear, how long has the GOP been working the media with hardball tactics? Finally, we get someone like Hillary savvy enough to play the game the way the big boys want it to be played, and they say, Who invited her to the party?

    The media and GOP are part of this exclusive country club called the United States government, and they write the rules for membership, only it’s all grandfather clauses and things, when they should really at least be honest and say: no liberals allowed. Instead, it’s, “It’s hypocritical to be rich enough to run a campaign, and pass policy for the poor,” or “You can’t have tits. I can see them.” Or, “you can’t complain about the way we do things around here if you want to join. The way we do things is, you can’t join.”

    Screw that. I’m crashing this party, dude, and I ain’t content to be these people’s caddy. You want to throw a hissy about GQ NOW? You bet they’ll never allow a DEMOCRAT to do that again. Holy crap, don’t run that MoveON ad! Put in the Swiftboat Vets. You know how much crap we got the last time we ran MOVEON? And charge them DOUBLE! You know how much crap we got in the last time? And charge every Republican HALF PRICE! We need to show them we aren’t biased!

    And you wonder why non-Republicans get their ads pulled and execs refuse to take the Dixie Chicks money to advertise their documentaries? Because there isn’t mutually assured destruction, and any time we approach anything even closely resembling parity, you and Joe Klein get in our way!

  • A major difference between Republicans and Democrats is that when they ran the House, all Republicans were expected to vote with the leadership on procedural motions, regardless of the content of the motion, and they did so. Democrats, it seems, feel they can ignore the leadership with impunity on such votes.

  • “Consider a Congressman, then consider an idiot. Ah, but I repeat myself.”
    — Mark Twain, 1876

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