With Enemies Like This, General Petraeus Gets New Friends
Move.On.org has run an ad with a headline that deserves nothing less than utter, unadulterated condemnation from thinking Americans of both parties, including those who feel his decision to give an exclusive to Fox News after his report to Congress injects him into partisan politics and is a public relations fiasco.
To mince no words, this is the kind of language that cause us to delete comments on this blog and to even ban commenters. It undermines the rest of moveon.org’s message and, frankly, when some people (like yours truly) see it, we stop reading the rest of it.
Why? Because we condemn it when the White House, conservative talk show hosts, or bloggers suggest that war critics are less than patriotic. So we condemn with equal fervor moveon.org’s political blunder which will lose it (and its side) the ear of a lot of people since it’s just as reprehensible as those who run elections suggesting war critics are cowards or want the other side to win.
The Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp blog:
MoveOn.org was looking to get attention and so they have with their full-page New York Times ad in which they slam Gen. David Petraeus, rhyming his name with “betray us.” It’s the liberal group’s version of shock and awe.
The ad’s text is an indictment of Petraeus in which they do everything but call the general a serial liar…”
Go to the link and read it. The actual TEXT could be subject to vigorous debate since the General has now either chosen or been instructed to essentially only talk to administration friendly, partisan Fox News which, whether he intended to or not, is perceived as being politically tinged (he could alleviate that by talking to MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS or ABC, giving them an equal shot at tossing him un-previewed questions) . Fair enough…
But the ad’s headline is as bad as anything Vice President Dick Cheney has been accused of saying about the Democrats but actually worse…since it is actually using the word “betray.”
The headline is: “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”
We don’t like this kind of demonization politics when either side does it.
And those who dabble in it, really don’t deserve to have the rest of their ads, blog posts, or speeches seriously considered by those of us Americans who realize we can all passionately and even angrily differ without calling those who disagree with us traitors.
14 Responses to “With Enemies Like This, General Petraeus Gets New Friends”
In addition to being wrong for all the reasons stated above, it’s shabby and childish. Geez, it’s the sort of thing you might chortle over a beer with (more likely if it were at least the third beer) but what dimwit said “Cool man, let’s put that in the New York Times!”
This is the sort of thing that happens, on both the left and the right, with echo-chambers. You live in the kind bubble that encourages groupthink, so that really stupid ideas like this get no critical analysis before they get implemented. The administration must be thrilled, something is finally going to make them look good.
Does MoveOn believe that their ad will persuade anyone to adopt its position on the war? I bet it will have exactly the opposite effect.
MoveOn lost my support some time ago. They are frankly trying to whip up the left and moderates using the same tactics I have been complaining about and disgusted with from the right. I think now that the left feels somewhat vindicated since last novembers elections they have mistaken public dislike of the conservative gov’t with blanket approval of leftist opinions even if they use the same cheap tricks. A stupid political mistake that I see will put the same type of douchebags back in office we thought we just got rid of.
1. The ad got everybody talking about it.
2. This is a PR general worse than Gen. Westmoreland. He is making up his chart numbers. He seems to have spend more time this past month doing PR for the White House than running this surge. His statements of the past several years have always said the same thing, Bush’s plan is working and just needs more time.
I’m sure that the victims of Soros-cide thought they were clever, but they let the dirty little secret out too soon, If anyone is going to betray us, the followers of UK convicted felon Soros will be the ones to do so.
What Lynx said.
You see, the right’s treason is in their trampling of the Constitution and the crimes against humanity committed in their quest for imperial power. The left’s treason is… well talking about the horrible things be done by the right. One has caused mass casualties, the other has made the guilty parties look, well, guilty.
Equating the two is absurd.
Sashal, the left’s treason is endemic, in their own trampling of the Constitution and the attempts to get the Kremlin involved on the Dem side in the ’84 election. The KGB records noted that Teddy Kennedy and Jimmy Carter made separate approaches through their emissaries to Moscow to keep Reagan from being re-elected.
In the Dem playbook, I suppose you would consider that “just politics.” In the real world, THAT’S REAL TREASON.
The Democrats live in a parallel universe where they invent “horrible things” and then do what they do best, lie and whine, whine and lie.
djman1141 – Just another Moonbat Librul – where’s the moderation?
I actually found the response from Sen. Kyl to be much more offensive than the Move On ad. If you get beyond the outlandish headline rhyming Petraeus with Betray Us, the ad is absolutely correct in calling out Petraeus for making up statistics about the surge. And then Kyl hides behind Petraeus’ uniform and demands the Democrats not only denounce Move On but support both Petraeus “and the mission.”
Also, the GOP fell into a trap by talking incessantly about the ad. People who might not have thought Petraeus could be making things up will hear Republicans complaining about charges of his dishonesty. So then they’ll start to think…hmmm, Petraeus accused of dishonesty. Maybe there’s a point in there.
The Republicans should have left it alone and pushed Petraeus’ generally realistic testimony instead of getting into a pissing match with Moveon.
I think Lynx called this one right:
“This is the sort of thing that happens, on both the left and the right, with echo-chambers. You live in the kind bubble that encourages groupthink….The administration must be thrilled”
Sen.Kerry is only the latest Democrat to dive for cover from this “friendly fire” from the liberal rear end. The generally subtle undercutting of Petraeus seemed to be working across the MSM until this “own goal” barrage. It makes it all the more difficult for Democrats to publicly echo MoveOn’s “peace at any price” position.
I imagine the GOP is only hoping the same geniuses remain in charge at MoveOn in ’08.
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Lynx nailed it. Name-calling isn’t debate, and whether the far-left or the far-right does it, the only result is that any message they might have is undermined by the delivery. I agree with some of the thing MoveOn says, but I’d go to great lengths to avoid being associated with a group that acts childish and disrespectful.
[...] this website, we ran THIS POST and THIS POST noting that the ad’s language had no place in American discourse and also would [...]