Memo To MoveOn: Tone It Down Or Move On

I don’t suffer fools gladly, so I kept MoveOn at arm’s length in 2004 and 2006, but after the General Betrayus ad controversy last year finally concluded that these trash talking and tone deaf so-called progressives are bound to do more harm than good as Barack Obama leads the charge to end the Republican hegemony in Washington.

And so it was gratifying when the presumptive Democratic nominee gently but necessarily chided MoveOn in his speech on patriotism yesterday in saying:

“[S]ome of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself – by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day. And yet the anger and turmoil of that period never entirely drained away. All too often our politics still seems trapped in these old, threadbare arguments – a fact most evident during our recent debates about the war in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by some as unpatriotic, and a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.”

Taking MoveOn to task does not come easily. I cut my social activist teeth in the late 60s and understood that while Students For a Democratic Society and some other groups could be off message and self absorbed, they were integral to fighting the good fight.

So is MoveOn. Indeed, I am not asking that it get with Obama’s program. Independent voices are more important than ever in this era of homogenized politics. But if MoveOn is determined to trample on Obama’s message because he is not sufficiently leftist and unwilling to jump through its hoops, then its stridency will not only be a negative force but a reliable punching bag for the right-of-center punditocracy, and the last thing Obama needs are surrogates who make things more difficult.

A final thought: Some MoveOn activists see themselves as the reincarnation of the Vietnam antiwar movement, but as someone who was in the midst of that movement, this is a bad joke and they’re the last people in the room to get it.

These adolescents have been notably unsuccessful in fashioning a cogent message, in part because they keep stepping on their willies when it comes to addressing the ancillary issue of terrorism, and opposition to the Iraq war has grown slowly but steadily without their help.

While we’re kind of on the subject, former General Wesley Clark’s view that John McCain’s POW experience doesn’t automatically translate into him being prime commander in chief material has been widely criticized, taken out of context and otherwise flogged as being inappropriate.

It is in fact highly appropriate given McCain’s blindered view of Iraq and his willingness to bomb first and talk later when it comes to Iran. Too bad that Clark’s remarks have kind of upstaged Obama’s patriotism speech and the candidate himself does not approve of them, but they were a much needed pushback against the archaic and platitude driven views of what constitutes patriotism for too many Americans.