I can appreciate that MoveOn.org’s NYT ad yesterday included, to borrow John Kerry’s phrase, some “over the top” language. The ad was meant to be provocative; it was intended to generate inflammatory responses.
Whether the group’s strategy was wise is certainly open to debate, but Republicans are making a mistake by overplaying their outrage.
House Republicans are introducing a resolution to condemn an ad that MoveOn.org ran in The New York Times, referring to General David Petraeus as “General Betray Us” and accusing him of playing politics with his statistics regarding the surge. The ad was frequently referred to by Republican members at yesterday’s committee hearing with the general.
“The despicable attack MoveOn.org launched against General Petraeus today should be condemned by all Members of Congress, including the Democratic leadership,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). “I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to join in support of this resolution so the House speaks with one voice rejecting the character assassination tactics employed by this extremist group.”
The resolution comes on the heels of House Republicans who preferred to talk about the ad instead of policy during the Petraeus/Crocker hearing yesterday, and Senate Republicans (most notably Norm Coleman) who are still going back to the well during this morning’s hearings.
My first thought was to note the crocodile-tears quality of all of this. Do we really need to rehash every recent instance of a notable right-wing lawmaker, activist, or media personality using over-the-top rhetoric? Every example of this crowd questioning a Democrat’s patriotism, and engaging in character assassination? Every occasion of a far-right talk-show host using disgusting language on the air, only to have Dick Cheney on shortly thereafter?
But that’s probably the wrong response, in part because it equates MoveOn with clowns like DeLay, Coulter, Falwell, and O’Reilly. My second thought was to note that it wasn’t liberal activists who came up with “General Betray Us” line, it was conservatives.
But that’s unsatisfying, in part because it’s kind of irrelevant. The real point here is that MoveOn.org, whether the ad was offensive or not, is not the problem here.
Too many Republicans, particularly in the House and at the grassroots, have apparently decided that Iraq policy is far too difficult, so it’s preferable to attack MoveOn. But that’s absurd — we’re in the midst of a national discussion on a war. Lives are at stake. National security is on the line.
The right’s priorities are spectacularly flawed. The plan is apparently a short-term political victory over a boogeyman — the RNC wasted no time in trying to raise money off the MoveOn ad — instead of engaging in a serious debate about the costliest policy catastrophe in a generation.
John Cole — who voted for Bush twice — shared a particularly poignant perspective.
The current GOP is a sniveling, brain-dead, spineless group of sewer trout, always focused on political advantage, never paying a lick of attention to what really matters. In the aftermath of Petraeus’s lame and essentially fact-free testimony (BUT HE HAD CHARTS!), they are not focusing on the hard decisions that need to be made, they are not soul-searching and trying to determine their role in this mess. That would make too much sense. Instead, they are doing what they always do — lashing out, trying to achieve one more temporary little political victory.
Condemning MoveOn won’t save one god damned life in Iraq. It will, however, make the dead-enders they represent giggle like a self-satisfied toddler on the pot.
It’s shameless. If the right took coming up with a coherent Iraq policy half as seriously as they take some intemperate newspaper ad, the nation would be far better off.