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Posted on 09/30/2007 9:14:13 AM PDT by jazusamo
Sunday, September 30, 2007
It's hard to tell what's more depressing. Is it the fact that MoveOn.org puts a full-page ad in The New York Times essentially calling a distinguished U.S. general a traitor? Or is it the fact that Democrats like Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Earl Blumenauer cannot rise above the muck to condemn this vile attack on a uniformed officer?
After all, it's one thing for a left-wing outfit like MoveOn.org to accuse Gen. David Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House" in assessing the success of the surge in Iraq. It's one thing calling the top U.S. commander in Iraq "General Betray Us." What isn't downright despicable is just juvenile.
But it's another thing for members of Congress to refuse to condemn this vicious assault on a military officer who's devoted his life to the nation. It's another thing to have weeks to think about the implications of this attack on a commander and not join other lawmakers -- other members of your party, if politics is all that matters to you -- in denouncing MoveOn's ad. It's another thing for a Blumenauer, who wants to be known as a sober lawmaker, and Wyden, who likes to cast himself as a moderate, to fail to censure such slime. It's disappointing and sad, and low in its own way.
Yet there was Wyden, one of only 25 senators who opposed denouncing the ad. And a week later, there was Blumenauer, joining only 78 other House members in opposing a resolution of condemnation.
Wyden offered no explanation for his vote, figuring perhaps that it was best to slink away in silence. Blumenauer, by contrast, was all explanations. "The motion to condemn MoveOn.org was both irrelevant and hypocritical," he said in a statement. "It was irrelevant in that it had nothing to do with the underlying bill and hypocritical because the Republicans have tolerated, and in some cases encouraged, some of the most savage Swift-boating of candidates and individuals without ever raising a voice in protest."
The motion to condemn was irrelevant to the underlying bill. No doubt about it. But if that's Blumenauer's standard for voting "no," he's going to be casting more "no" votes from here on. This happens a fair amount in Congress. Last week, the Senate voted to attach federal hate crimes legislation to the defense authorization bill. In fact, Blumenauer himself once offered amendments on dog- and cock-fighting to the farm bill. (Hey, animals live on farms.)
Now, for the hypocrisy claim. Yeah, what about John Kerry in 2004 and Max Cleland in 2002? Republicans didn't gripe about the ads against these decorated war veterans.
This cliched counter is almost as juvenile as the "General Betray Us" play on words. First, adults don't fail to act against a current wrong because the other side failed to act against a past wrong. Not if they want to be taken seriously. As Wisconsin Rep. David Obey said last week in voting to censure the MoveOn ad, "I've got an obligation to be equally upset when that kind of juvenile debate emanates from the left."
Give this longtime liberal Democrat a seat at the grown-up table.
Second, the Petraeus-Kerry-Cleland-analogy doesn't even hold up. Whatever you may think of the Swift-boat ads against Kerry or the Saxby Chambliss ad against Cleland, these were campaign ads against political candidates. The "General Betray Us" ad was nothing of the kind. Petraeus is not a political candidate or even a politician. This is what made his recent testimony so important and credible.
MoveOn's ad wouldn't have raised an eyebrow if it had gone after George Bush, Dick Cheney or some other "neo-conservative" demon. It would have been just another day at the garbage dump. Congress has no more business pronouncing on campaign ads than it has pronouncing on beer ads. Voters are utterly capable of sorting out campaign charges and counter-charges on their own. They don't need a grand aggregation of politicians weighing in on the merits or demerits of a campaign ads.
But Petraeus is an active-duty general asked to testify before Congress. He's a soldier and the commander of 160,000 troops in Iraq. You know, the troops everybody likes to say they support.
Congress has every right and duty to protect our uniformed officer corps from such political assault.
MoveOn should confine its mudslinging -- its cries of betrayal, its questioning of someone's patriotism -- to politicos and policy makers. And Democratic lawmakers who don't have the discernment or decency to protest their ideological chums' sliming of this U.S. commander? They might, at least, marshal the integrity to pursue MoveOn's base charge to its logical conclusion. Demand charges be brought against Gen. Petraeus. Bring him back to Capitol Hill. Require him to testify under oath again.
Yeah, I didn't think so.
Oregon ping.
One other difference is that the ads against Kerry and Cleland were truthful.
I don't think Kerry has yet to release his official military records.
Exactly! I noted that also.
Oregonian Editorial. Go figure!
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The power of the media made these mentally ill perverts, the heroes of the Nam War and our brave vets, the criminals.
If Kerry, his mentor Ted Kennedy and Jane Fonda had been tried for treason when they were lying about our service men in Nam, found guilty and hung in the Capitol Rotunda, America and the world would be a safer place.
These elite liberal hatriotics had better pray that Iraq doesn't become a rich, powerful and free standing nation. A rich and free Iraq might hire a lot of mercs to capture and bring these war criminals to trial in Iraq for War Crimes against innocent Iraqis. They could make what the Israelis did with the Nazi War Criminals after WWII look like a walk in the park.
AMEN to that, Dave!
And as to those lib traitors you may well be right that if Iraq becomes a powerful free standing nation their lives could be worth nothing and would have to hide under rocks like the cowards they are.
Any left winger, who has received monies from al Qaeda, Iran, $addam, Syria and other Islamofascists to bring death and misery to innocent Iraqis, may find themselves in real danger in a few years if there is a strong Iraq.
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