The contrast couldn’t be more illustrative. Yesterday afternoon, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) rejected a measure to give U.S. troops as much time at home as they spend in combat. Shortly thereafter, Cornyn introduced a resolution to condemn MoveOn.org, as a way of demonstrating his support for the troops.
As Congress considers a series of bills that would drastically alter the course of the Iraq war, one prominent Republican senator will be focusing his efforts on condemning a newspaper advertisement.
The Huffington Post has learned that Sen. John Cornyn, R-TX, will introduce a sense of the Senate resolution Thursday criticizing MoveOn.org’s recent advertisement in the New York Times. The ad called into question the credibility of Lt. General David Petraeus, suggesting the pseudonym “Betray Us.”
Cornyn’s amendment proclaims that the general “deserves the full support of the Senate.” The MoveOn advertisement, Cornyn’s legislation states, not only “impugns the honor and integrity of General Petraeus,” but “all the members of the United State Armed forces.”
Yes, we’ve apparently reached a point at which a group that questions the credibility of one military leader is necessarily smearing every member of the U.S. Armed Forces.
It is a helpful reminder, though, of what gets a conservative Republican’s attention. When a Democratic senator (and a decorated combat veteran) introduces a measure that would actually help active-duty troops, Cornyn doesn’t even want the measure to come up for a vote. When a group takes out an intemperate newspaper ad, then it’s time to “support the troops.”
It sets up a revealing dichotomy — Dems care about actual support for the troops, but are disinterested in some newspaper ad. Republicans believe the opposite. Good to know.
What’s more, yesterday, the president decided to weigh in on the subject as well. From National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez:
Kate O’Beirne and I just got back from a meeting with the president in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for a small group of conservative journalists.
There was a lot of ground covered, and the president was in a serious but confident mood — clearly sending the message that this administration is not close to over.
President Bush may have been most emphatic though when it came to the topic of “those left wing ads” attacking General Petraeus. The president brought the infamous New York Times MoveOn ad up without prompting, saying of his reaction to it: “I was incredulous at first and then became mad.”
“It is one thing to attack me — which is fine,” the president said. But the president’s view the attack on Petraeus as “an attack on men and women in uniform.”
You mean like when Republican activists thought it would be funny to mock injured troops at the 2004 Republican National Committee? A stunt that the president and his camapign team refused to criticize or condemn?
John Cole — who voted for Bush twice — made a point last week that bears repeating.
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.
Once again, 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.