(Updated) A Memo to MoveOn.Org: Cut the Crap. It’s Time To Move On
The Democratic Party needs MoveOn.Org like a bad case of diarrhea.
Yet there was the left-wing public policy group giving it the sh*ts this week because of its latest outburst of trash talk – a full-page ad disparaging General David Petraeus in the New York Times on Monday that carried the the big, bold headline “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”
While there was merit to what the body of the ad said, because of the headline it accomplished nothing positive and plenty negative in giving congressional Republicans, their Fox News helpmates and the right-wing blogosphere something to rail about, as well as distracting attention from the Petraeus-Crocker dog-and-pony show.
I have a second problem with the ad, as well: President Bush certainly is fair game. But going after Petraeus, and by implication the brave men and women he commands, is out of bounds, and the ad is yet further evidence that this bunch of self-absorbed lefties have never been able to understand that while you can and should criticize the war, you don’t dishonor the warrior.
Then there is the sad news that the objectivity impairment in the Times newsroom has spread to the advertising department.
The New York Post reports that the open rate for an ad of the type and size of the MoveOn ad is $181,692, according to a Times flack, but MoveOn says that it only paid $65,000.
It’s easy to forget that MoveOn was formed in response to the Clinton impeachment debacle. Its fund-raising prowess has become formidable, but cheap shots like the headline on the ad merely serve to call attention to itself and further alienate folks like myself.
While I defend MoveOn’s right to be tone-deaf, which it expresses with feckless regularity, I fear that its ability to destruct far outweighs its ability to instruct and suggest that the Democratic presidential wannabes whom it holds in its slimy caress send it a back-channel message:
Thanks, but no thanks.
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32 Responses to “(Updated) A Memo to MoveOn.Org: Cut the Crap. It’s Time To Move On”
What MoveOn did was disgraceful.
It will continue to hurt the Democrats as it’s recalled over and over for years and years.
Those Demcrats not expressing disapproval deserve to be hurt.
You are right on the first score (that it was hamfisted and silly, especially the title) but wrong on the second. Generals are fair game in ways that ordinary soldiers are not. You think Lincoln’s generals never came in for harsh criticism, including accusations of treason? The reasons soldiers are off limits is because they are a) likely to be killed or wounded in action (while generals aren’t in today’s combat), b) are following orders and not setting policy, and c) are from our own walks of life and are not careerists or politicians. Generals are policy-makers and leaders, even if there are civilians leading and making policy above them.
Again, I think MoveOn was out of line by rhyming Betray Us with Petraeus. But the substance of the rest of the ad was dead on, and it behooves the public not to fall for GOP hide-behind-the-troops gimmickry in response.
Yes… the ad was not helpful at all.
But isn’t if funny the strange deranged things those who are enraged and traumatized will do… and can be talked into supporting. Like suspending the hunt for those who attacked and killed 3,000 of your fello citizens because you have been convinced an impotent tin-horn dictator was an imminent threat… even involved in the attack.
The ad was a mistake. But in comparison to other mistakes these past six years…
An unhelpful mistake, but I fully understand the vehemence of their rage.
I read this blog to hear the the moderate voice, not the stupid voice.
1. criticizing the title of moveon’s ad when your lead-in talks about shit = stupid (and ironic)
2. calling a citizen-funded PAC “slimy” – yeah, unlike those nice clean corporate PACs – also stupid
3. saying a general appointed by a President who fired Shinseki for political reasons is above political scrutiny and discussion… Let me think about that… (NOT! It’s stupid!)
Now, I don’t pay much attention to moveon, though as an anti-war leftist I don’t like your bald assertion that they’re bad. Nor, having read the Daily Howler this week, do I like your knee-jerk Petreus boosting. But it’s a blog, so I’ll forgive your lack of substance. My issue is that your vitriol isn’t moderate, and your thinking is feces-tastic.
Sean – please remember to take your meds before you post. KTHX.
Beaverton-Jewboy’s juvenile attack on Shawn (can’t you get the man’s name right?) is revealing of why I think MoveOn’s ad was successful (for MoveOn, but not for the Democrats or rational discourse).
The ad was akin to the gross flashings of pubic areas by Britney, Paris etc. in months past…i.e., it gets attention…and increases MoveOn’s profile and donations.
It’s “junior high” rhyming taunt would also appeal to folks like Beaverton in the above, who seem to enjoy multilple references to excrement in their writing.
Shawn is a liberal whose writing here at TMV I have often enjoyed. I often disagree with him, but I don’t think anyone rational could view him as a knee-jerk supporter of the Iraq War.
Oops…Shaun not Shawn…d’oh (sorry, Shaun)
Ha, Marlowe’s a victim of what I recently described as a corollary to Murphy’s law. It goes like this: Any blog commenter who criticizes another commenter’s spelling or grammar will automatically make spelling or grammar errors in his/her post. It rarely fails!
C Stanley said: “Ha, Marlowe’s a victim of what I recently described as a corollary to Murphy’s law…”
Heh-heh…true, true…but I plead righteous indignation (and the lack of my morning coffee!) as extenuating circumstances.
Isn’t this what the U.S. has to look forward to? As the Democratic Party emerges as the one, dominate political party, the push will not be on winning elections or thinking about the next campaign. The push will be marketing type stunts and other types of activist driven efforts to affect the few elected leaders who can change things.
Yes, we can all see how passionate you are about civil, moderate debate LOL
Sean (/strike) Shaun, you’ve just won a moderate merit badge by being attacked by those on the (far) left as not pure! Congratulations!SD one more of those and I’m mailing you a box of Prozac. Stop it with the one party state. It. Is. Not. Happening. Yes, I know your reasons, and I don’t buy them. Democracy is stronger than that.
Shaun,
Bravo. Just like right-leaning voices need to take on Ann Coulter and Limbaugh when their rhetoric is harmful, so left-leaning voices need to do the same with groups like MoveOn. You accomplished that and I (for one) applaud you.
ahhh damn, I meant only to strike Sean! argg. You get the idea I suppose. Just in case, I’ll copy it RIGHT and ask you Shaun to delete the bad one. Thanks!
Yes, we can all see how passionate you are about civil, moderate debate LOL
SeanShaun, you’ve just won a moderate merit badge by being attacked by those on the (far) left as not pure! Congratulations!SD one more of those and I’m mailing you a box of Prozac. Stop it with the one party state. It. Is. Not. Happening. Yes, I know your reasons, and I don’t buy them. Democracy is stronger than that.
Pete, it is important to note the differences between the actors that you mention, (Coulter and Limbaugh on the right and MoveOn.org or the left). The difference lies not in their level of discourse, I’ve never listened to Rush so I can’t really say for sure what he’s said, but in their affiliations. Limbaugh and Coulter are out throwing rhetorical bombs for their own enrichment, we don’t know if they truly believe what they say but they say it for money/profit. While MoveOn is a PAC that helps to fund the political campaigns and should therefore be considered to have more influence over the candidates that they align themselves with than those that Coulter and Limbaugh choose to align themselves with.
A strategic blunder worthy of their self-styled opponents. It will only hurt them in the long run- and now since it is so much spun sugar, they will have a hell of a time retracting/backpeddling. I’ve unsubbed from their mailing lists, for one.
Move On’s problem is that they can’t see from the haze around them, so they think everything they say and do makes sense. There is protest that is good for discussion of ideas and there is stupid, childish mean-spirited behavior and that is what they are becoming more and more of. They aren’t the only ones, but they’re marginalizing themselves by their behavior.
To me, there is not so much “news” in what “the left” thinks of it, but being the first side to hand your opponent a “get out of jail free” card in the negative campaign world. You just know this is going to a screen shot that will be shown over and over again for the next 14 months. Move.on just unwittingly underwrote the cost of ad copy for its opponents. If it was going to work at all in their favor, you would have known it by now. Now it is going to work against them for a long time to come.
What was the reason for this decision, I wonder……
1. Their “advertising team” confined their focus-group testing to only the parking lot at Columbia University thinking it would be a good representative sample?
2. Their ad department is suffering the effects of nepotism……….Soros’ 11 year old grand-nephew is in charge of copy writing.
3. They have so much freakin’ money to blow, what’s $10M gone with absolutely nothing gained by it?
PWT you have a very good point………Move.on is greatly perceived by the public as a Democrat political “organization”, Coulter and Limbaugh are perceived as Republican supporting “individuals”……I think the distinction is notable in its effect.
The headline was bad, no argument there, but it did express the disappointment many of us felt. The country badly needed someone in whom they could trust to tell the truth about the surge and the ongoing situation in Iraq, and like many others I believed Petraeus would be that person.
Unfortunately he let himself down by allowing the Bush administration use his good name in their PR push. Giving Fox an exclusive was just the last in a long line of obvious partisan acts.
To state that he has betrayed us is too harsh for me, but I do have the strong feeling that in time he will come to realize that he might just have betrayed himself.
Rarely do I agree with Shuan on anything, but I think he’s spot on. As someone who regularly does campaign consulting work for moderate Democrats, MoveOn’s tone-deafness makes my work that much harder. Then again, it means I get more work….
BEAVERTON: A gentle reminder that if you don’t like someone’s ideas it really is more effect to simply specify why you think they’re wrong. We usually just automatically delete comments that name call writers. We have also had emails from commenters who’ve asked that we do that if someone commenting does that to another person who comments. So while your disagreement with any posts you see on this site is something we would welcome you detailing in comments we try to keep comments to the issue and not turn it into a post on the writer. For one thing, it does not change the mind of anyone who might feel uncertain about an issue and where they stand. So next time, just make a list in comments about why you think a post by me or shaun or anyone here reeks and avoid the adjectives. We welcome your perspective so just outline your argument in favor or against what we write about`
Good and fair post Shaun. I agree.
First, I’m going to condemn the headline as counterproductive and the type of low-level rhetoric that we have come to expect from the Bush WH, where opponents to the war have been called appeasers, traitors and terrorist enablers. This type of rhetoric is way over the top and increases the distance between the parties, just at the moment they need to reach a reasoned consensus. So, Shaun is right to condemn it- leading Dems should distance themselves from these tactics, though I think requiring them to not accept donations from the PAC is a tad ridiculous.
Having said that, though, Petraeus became a target of the left the moment Bush realized that with almost no credibility left, he needed to give his war policy a new face, one that still had integrity, and who could not be attacked as a political hack. Petraeus is undoubtedly a stellar commander who has done his utmost to turn the dismal situation in Iraq around. His counterinsurgency tactics have had some success, no one is taking that away from him.
But, its evident that he is being asked to sell the continuation of an unpopular war because the architects of that war have failed so miserably, and have deceived the public about the overall picture for 4 1/2 years. Petraeus can bring temporary stability to parts of Iraq, but he can’t force political reconciliation or restore economic prosperity. Bush is hiding behind Petraeus’ reputation because his own has been fatally tarnished. Petraeus is the proxy for the Bush administration, and as such his report should be met with skepticism. His report should be compared with the GAO report and others and conflicts with them held up to the light of day.
Civilians lead the Pentagon- not the other way around. This has been reversed only because the civilian leadership has failed miserably.
[...] Shaun Mullen / The Moderate Voice: (Updated) A Memo to MoveOn.Org: Cut the Crap. It’s Time To Move On [...]
I find some of the comments as dispiting as the MoveOn ad headline itself.
To me, this is about an ad with a kindergarden mentality headline, name-calling a person. I despise smearing a person in ads, regardless of job description or party affilitation.
This is not about MoveOn (who would have been attacked no matter what the ad said), the Democrats, the Republicans or a rehash of what the fans of each side have done in the past or who contributes to whom.
This is not about deciphering the focus group successes or falures of ads. (If the ad had worked, it would have been okay?)
This is not about being a PAC or an individual advocate.
This is about how we, as a society, want to conduct public advocacy and debate.
Prior to this, I’ve read a lot of commentary defending negative ad campaigns on ‘but it works’
grounds.
No. It it’s not okay when it doesn’t work, it’s not okay when it works. That’s what this is about, Imo, at least.
Again, who is to blame? General Betrayus? Look, in our system of government, military officers have no say on policy, and for good reason. The critics of Petraeus seem to think he is obligated to oppose the policy in Iraq. Sorry, but that’s beyond his purview. His job is rather limited, which is why it’s so strange to me that so much attention is focused on Petreaus, especially when compared to Crocker.
If you want the policy on Iraq changed, then you need to look to Congress and no serving military officers.
Entropy said: “Look, in our system of government, military officers have no say on policy, and for good reason. The critics of Petraeus seem to think he is obligated to oppose the policy in Iraq. Sorry, but that’s beyond his purview.”
I have been puzzled about this too. While some comedians at the Huffington Post might argue (a few weeks back) that generals can disobey orders and arrest presidents at will…a basic principle of the Republic is that civilian leaders – good or bad – call the shots.
I suspect the animus of MoveOn – and of the NYT that subsidized the ads with a “family discount” – for Petraeus stems from the underlying hatred many on the Left have for the military in any form. Combine this with BDS…and you have the view that expects the officer corps of the United States to resign en masse rather than accept the orders of Chimpybushitlerburton.
Anyone who thinks that the military “arresting” the President or otherwise interfering in Policy should take a hard look a Pakistan, for that is the kind of “democracy” they are advocating, whether they realize it or not.
It may be misguided for the left to blame Petraeus for carrying out the Decider’s policy, but as I noted before, he became a target when he became the face of that policy. It was a brilliant political move by Bush- tho cowardly, imo.
MoveOn is turning into the left’s FOX News.
Big deal. How much outrage was there when Bush and Cheney basically called every Democrat a traitor? How about when Petraeus insinuated it during his confirmation hearing?
MoveOn.org is not the Democratic Party. Their advertisements are not important. How about we actually worry about Iraq and all the people we’re killing.
I disagree. This was an early Christmas gift to the RNC, who has been in the doldroms because of grim war news,mass Republican resignations from Congress, diminished donations, and multiple GOP sex scandals. Moveon’s campaign will galvanize the right, but make no difference to the left.
I’ve been hearing some negative feedback, which disturbs me.
I’d like to apologize to Shaun if I came off too harsh or personal, which it seems I did. Sorry, Shaun. I tend to write forcefully, and today I didn’t pause to check if I was going over a line. Reading over my comments, I can see how people interpret them as calling you stupid, when I was criticizing your argument. I’ll try to make that clearer in the future. And the meds thing was a joke, I don’t think you actually need meds. Even if you do, I’m sure you’re still a good person.
That is all.
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