SENATE CAN'T GIVE SOLDIERS SOME TIME AWAY FROM THE FRONT LINES-- LET ALONE END THE WAR-- BUT THEY DID MANAGE TO CONDEMN ANTI-WAR PATRIOTS

"It is a sad day in the Senate when we spend hours debating an ad while our young people are dying in Iraq. Now that the Senate has twice voted on this ad, it is time to move on and vote to end the war."
- Chris Dodd

Even though MoveOn stole the name I invented for Petraeus, I'm proud to call myself a MoveOn Democrat. Move On is an action-oriented grassroots group that would be the home of people like Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Thomas Paine, John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ethan Allen if this were the middle 1700's. I guarantee you that John Cornyn, Miss McConnell, George Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Frederick of Hollywood, Jack Abramoff, Flip Flop Mitt, and virtually the entire Republican Party of 2007 would be proud Tories and among the third of American colonists supporting the British monarchy and opposing the American Revolution.

Forget the desperate Republican insiders who stand to lose as many as 8-12 seats in the Senate this year and who will do anything to stop the slide. Instead, let's look at normal men and women of good intention and ask how they feel about the MoveOn ad the Insiders are having fits over. There are a certain number of people on both sides of the political spectrum who feel uncomfortable with pointing out that a general-- especially during wartime-- in betraying us. In reality the name BetrayUs kind of lends itself kind of seamlessly to "Petraeus" and it wasn't MoveOn (or even more, it turns out) who first used it. It may have been used in his third grade elementary school but the first documented usage was by American soldiers stationed in Iraq. More important, of course, is that no one can seriously dispute the factuality of anything in the MoveOn ad, especially not the main point that Petraeus was cooking the books on behalf of his masters in the Bush Regime.

Remember, Bush and Cheney had already ruthlessly purged all the honest generals who disagreed with them. Polls have consistently shown that no matter how inappropriate or appropriate most Americans feel the ad was, they don't dispute MoveOn's questioning of Petraeus' credibility. Americans were certainly not convinced by the Regime's pathetic, orchestrated dog-and-pony show in which Petraeus and Crocker took part.

George Lakoff's analysis of the MoveOn ad got it right. Today the U.S. Senate got it wrong. And the Democrats who joined with the GOP in this foolishness should be ashamed, very, very ashamed.

Betrayal is everywhere in the news. We learned today from the Washington Post that Alan Greenspan said, in his new book, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Not keeping our country safe, as the troops were told. Not democracy. Not Weapons of Mass Destruction. Not al Qaeda. Oil! All those lives and maimings about oil! Are you shocked, shocked? It is Betrayal of Trust of the highest order: "Politically inconvenient ... everyone knows..." Oil was not discussed at the Petraeus hearings. The silence in Washington has been polite.

MoveOn's "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" ad has raised vital questions that need a thorough and open discussion. The ad worked brilliantly to reveal, via its framing, an essential but previously hidden truth: the Bush Administration and its active supporters have betrayed the trust of the troops and the American people.

MoveOn hit a nerve. In the face of truth, the right-wing has been forced to change the subject -- away from the administration's betrayal of trust and the escalating tragedy of the occupation to of all things, an ad! To take the focus off maiming and death and the breaking of our military, they talk about etiquette. The truth has reduced them to whining: MoveOn was impolite. Rather than face the truth, they use character assassination against an organization whose three million members stand for the highest patriotic principles of this country, the first of which is a commitment to truth.

Paul Begala said much the same thing on CNN. Speaking of the partisan Republican attack on Democratic presidential candidates-- in this case led by arch hypocrite Bill Bennett-- he said it would be "foolish for them to disassociate themselves with [the ad]. They didn't create that ad. And we now have the standard-– it's the Bush standard. President Bush stood there and had a really disreputable man attack John McCain's record as a veteran and he said nothing… Republicans ran ads, Saxby Chambliss-– a draft dodger-– ran an ad against Max Cleland, a war hero, questioning his courage and depicting him with Osama Bin Laden in an ad. John Thune, who never served, attacked a veteran, Tom Daschle-– depicting him in an ad with Saddam Hussein. Now these are Republicans. MoveOn is a liberal group, and God bless them-– let them say what they want."



So you're probably wondering which Democrats joined Saxby Chambliss and John Thune and Miss McConnell (who was kicked out of the military for fondling a private's privates) and the rest of the Republican betrayers. Here's the roll call. Take a look and see if your senator joined the GOP today. These are the only Democrats who didn't (yes, look hard for Obama's name; you won't find it here):

Akaka (D-HI)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
future President Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Murray (D-WA)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

And, by the way, did the Senate decide to condemn Senator Chuck Hagel, an actual war hero (unlike McCain who has traded on his unfortunate captivity for his entire miserable career)? Here's what Hagel said about Petraeus's testimony: "a dirty trick on the American people when you send a military man out there to basically do a political sell-job... It's not only a dirty trick, but it's dishonest, it's hypocritical, it's dangerous and irresponsible." Hagel shamelessly voted with his disgusting colleagues to condemn MoveOn today.

And it wasn't just Hagel and MoveOn who had some harsh words for the future Republican presidential candidate Petraeus. His superior, CentCom Chief, Admiral Bill Fallon was less kind, calling him "an ass-kissing little chickenshit... I hate people like that." Don't we all?

Today Rick Perlstein summed it up beautifully at the Campaign for America's Future website: "On September 11, General David Petraeus betrayed his office and abdicated his duty when he let himself be ventriloquist's dummy for a disingenuous propaganda campaign designed to hold American troops hostage in Iraq and keep the useless carnage indefinitely, exploiting cherry-picked or even invented statistics, under cover of the stars on his shoulder... The people holding Petraeus to account, with language that reflects the task's manifest moral urgency, are truthtellers doing God's work. And now I learn this: conservative senators are ginning up an amendment to say that the people telling the truth about General Petraeus impugn 'all members of the United States Armed Forces.'"

Glenn W. Smith agrees: "The Senate action on the MoveOn add is cynical and sad. MoveOn was right from the beginning, the ad was factual, hard-hitting, and focused on betrayal.

All that said, the saddest thing about the Senate vote today is the ease with which we have slipped into a state in which the military is politically untouchable and held in higher regard than its civilian leaders.

I don't mean to go all historical and hyperbolic here, but in the West, such anti-democratic trends and the spinelessness that marks them have often preceded the rise of Military States, from Rome to France to Germany.

Eisenhower was wise enough to take another path. Petraeus is ambitious enough to exploit this trend. The day is not far off when the MoveOn ad is going to seem even more righteous than it already is.

This morning Rick Noriega, the Blue America-endorsed candidate for the Texas U.S. Senate seat held by Cornyn-- the clown who introduced this attack on MoveOn-- introduced a resolution of his own-- in the Texas legislature. Rick sent me this today:

Today John Cornyn is introducing a Senate resolution to condemn a recent advertisement from MoveOn.org in the New York Times. While the Senate is debating important legislation focused on bringing a responsible end to the war in Iraq, this is what John Cornyn is focused on?

Yesterday, he voted against restoring the Constitution's basic right of habeas corpus. Yesterday, he voted against the Webb-Hagel amendment, legislation that would have provided a safety net for our
troops, requiring that they spend as much time at home with their families as they spend deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. And today? He's wasting the Senate's and the people's time by introducing a resolution about MoveOn.org's ad!

John Cornyn doesn't want to discuss his rubberstamping of this Administration's failed policies in Iraq, his obstruction of comprehensive immigration reform, or the fact he voted against health insurance for millions of children across America. Instead, we get a resolution from John Cornyn over a MoveOn.org ad in the New York Times. Tell John Cornyn to move on from MoveOn.

The Democrats who joined the GOP today to condemn the patriotic, anti-war grassroots are DEAD TO ME. Here's the way real Democrats-- like Congressman Pete Stark-- answer calumny by hypocrites like Cornyn and McConnell:

"I commend MoveOn for their ad and for speaking truth to power. Up is not down, the earth is not flat, and the surge is not working. General Petraeus betrayed his own reputation by standing with George Bush in opposition to the timely withdrawal of all of our brave men and women from Iraq. I thank MoveOn for their patriotic ad and call on Petraeus to help Bush end a war the President should have never started."

UPDATE: ANY INTEREST IN UNDERSTANDING WHAT WAS REALLY BEHIND THE MOVEON AD AND THE INSIDER ATTACK AGAINST IT?

This AirAmerica segment explains it really well, really, really well. The boys in the club aren't us.