On the eve of the Petraeus hearings, I wrote that if the Democrats didn’t call out the general on his partisan, politically motivated spin of the events unfolding in Iraq, they would prove their irrelevance on the issue of the ongoing occupation once and for all.
In the end, it was much worse than that. Senate Democrats took the time to join their Republican colleagues in condemning an ad produced by MoveOn.org that — accurately — pointed out Petraeus’ previous spin about progress in Iraq and warned that the general would “Betray Us.” The resolution passed by a vote of 72-25. Among the presidential contenders in the senate, Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd voted against the resolution and Barack Obama and Joe Biden abstained.
In the real world, this is all beyond idiotic. That the Senate would take valuable time to debate something as trivial as an advertisement in the New York Times is an indication of just how unserious the discourse about the war has become in Washington.
With such a boneheaded move, Senate Democrats showed again that there is no limit to their Pavlovian responses to military issues. They stand petrified that they’ll be called dirty, America-hating hippies who “oppose the troops” by Republicans, that they’ll invite a conservative back-lash if they show spine on ending the open-ended occupation of Iraq or that they’ll appear “soft on terror” or anti-military. It is the same unique paranoia about military issues that will likely keep a U.S. occupation force in Iraq until the Iraqis force our hand.
After the Petraeus smokescreen; but, before the Move On advert, Reuters commissioned an updated poll on Bush and Congress. Bush ended up with 29% approval – Congress with 11%. Both of these the lowest numbers since the beginning of Bush’s War.
Here’s a list of the Democrats who did Bush’s bidding. Someone buy each of them a wheelbarrow so they can stand up on their hind legs.
I love it when our two parties can work together on something important like this. Anyone have a suggestion for someplace with a nice temperate climate, nationalized health care, and easy immigration laws?
Someone needs to start a sensible, viable, 3rd party. Start at the grass roots level. Screw the presidency – look for the local elections and eventually the state level.
Plus – get rid of the stupid Primary bollocks. It’s just a media circus and it doesn’t help any – it just fractures the party.
A 3rd party could be “left wing” without being crazy libertarian (again, usually in name only), or being center right like the dems. A little bit left of the dems and less authoritarian than either party would work well…
Plus – they’d need to have enough backbone to call out bullshit like this.
Move-On is a non-profit political action organization that exists to promote its own somewhat left of center agenda. It is no different that the NRA, The NAACP, The ACLU, The Southern Poverty Law Center, The Sierra Club, PETA, PFLAG, The Christian Coalition, or The People For The American Way….
In other words… They can say whatever the fuck they want about whatever issue they want with absolute impunity, as stated by the supreme law of this land.
And any Congressperson who wastes valuable time and money on this issue should be getting their resume together.
I’ll agree with anyone who says MoveOn’s add was essentially a bad pun and poor conceived from a political strategy angle… And I’ll support anyone’s right to be personally and vocally critical of MoveOn… But I say “Go Straight To Hell” to anyone who thinks there should be an official, government condemnation of a political action group in response to a political idea (and I happen to agree with this on) even if it is expressed as third rate joke.
As mere paid shills for wealthy special interest groups, politicians as a rule don’t really need to be particularly intelligent members of our species and they tend to prove this thesis each and every day.
Still, now and then they display their stupidity in such a spectacular manner, they take my breath away.
General Petraeus was personally selected by the President to present a September report on how the President’s most recent military plan is working out. What did anyone, anyone at all, think he was going to say about the President’s plan?
Senate Democrats, if you were thinking at all, what exactly were you thinking when you voted to condemn this ad? Get a grip! Adjust your priorities! Resign or something!
I guess now they’ll have a resolution on whether Ahmadenijad gets to come to America and visit the World Trade Center.
I guess then they can have a resolution about whether this blog adds to the public debate. Then a resolution about whether Congress is spending too much money.
ROTFLMAO
What he says is not in line with your beliefs, therefore he is a liar?
Democrats are cowards – they have shown this over and over again.
#6, Philleep,
Yes, Petraeus is a liar.
Petraeus didn’t give a report to Congress before he testified. Instead he gave an oral “status”. That way Congress couldn’t challenge him on what he had written. The numbers he used disagree with the General Accounting Office’s report. The GAO backed up their numbers with references about where they came from. The Petraeus verbiage didn’t.
It is the piss poor General that chooses the political track over the safety and well being of his troops.
#6, And if you like, I’ll say it again.
Yes, Petraeus is a liar.
Well phuk you anyway, I said it again.
We have the technology now to have a ‘We The People’ government system without the flailing failing bobble heads ‘leaders’ (over paid & lead us wrong) Just have just enough government to enforce the will of the people without tazing grandma for waving a flag…
#3 I agree,
With Presidential apprval ratings in the mid 20s and Congressional approval ratings in the mid teens, it is clear the vast majority of Americans are disgusted by the “Washington” party as a whole. The primary issues we are dealing with that Washington seems to care less about are:
1. End American Imperialism in Iraq and elsewhere or We want our Army back!
2. Reverse the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, and Military tribunals, or We want our rights back!
3. Major cuts in Immigration, Globalization, corporate welfare, or We want our good jobs back!
4. Healthcare reform and universal coverage (we dont care how), or We want to see a doctor without declaring bankruptcy!
While the details are debatable, these issues have wide support from rank and file members of BOTH parties and independents. Populists candidates like Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Dennis Kucinich agree on this stuff too, but their respective parties will not support them.
Where is Washington?
#6 Phillep
“What he says is not in line with your beliefs, therefore he is a liar?”
No, he said what he got selected and paid to say. Why is that so difficult to understand? What he actually believes is not material to this topic.
#9 pedro
“As mere paid shills for wealthy special interest groups,”
You’re talking about moveon, right?
I don’t know about anyone else but I was talking about Democrats and Republicans being shills so yes, of course that would include moveon, in addition to Republican organs.
Why is it so difficult for liberals, conservatives, neocons, etcetera to understand the concept of neutrality? They always assume you’re attacking them personally for something. Is this due to guilty thoughts or what?
Cripes!
“Barack Obama and Joe Biden abstained.”
That’s the way to show leadership.
The democrats in office failed you? Will wonders never cease. As I have said before the problem in the United States is that BOTH parties have failed the citizens they so proudly swore an oath to serve. Hillary is an attention seeking idiot as bad as Britney or Paris. Obama? Yeah right thats going to happen. He stands for as much as Hillary does, in other words himself. Any republican candidate could be switched with baboon and a voice recorder blathering on about ‘values and protection and paranoia and blah blah blah’ could be turned on. All they want is more consolidated federal power for their own greed, What happen to great Americans? What happen to Jeffersons and Franklins and Hancocks and Kennedys and Eisenhowers and Lincolns. What happened was the growth of the media and the sorry state that our schools are in.
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=736
Dont under estimate WHAT this general said…And REMEMBER this is the 3-4th General in CHARGE…
Repeat after me… There is no success possible in Iraq. All successes you may be hearing about are propaganda, plain and simple. George Bush cannot win in Iraq. This would be a disaster for the Democratic Party. Geroge Bush must lose in Iraq. America must lose in Iraq so lon as George Bush is President. There is no success possible in Iraq.
#2 – Couldn’t Agree more, im British and don’t get me wrong, we have problems but what you have is ridiculus.
In the UK on Facebook there is a Group Jermy Clarkson for Priminister. Perhaps you could start one, Dvorak for President.
Haha Alternet and CommonDreams “Breaking news & Opinions for the Progressive (in name only) Community”, scroungen’ for opinion pieces. Closure votes are a bitch aren’t they Senator Reid.
“In the week just concluded, the Senate has debated a variety of measures related to the war in Iraq. The only measure which passed was one to denounce MoveOn for for its attack on General David Petraeus. By that measure, it was the most productive week the Senate has had on Iraq in months.”
American leadership (huh?) has finally entered full disconnect stage from the electorate. November’s vote gave the Democrats a mandate to pull the plug on Iraq, and they’ve failed miserably. The media, shrill and irrelevant, scream on about TV, sex and the bizzare happenings in Tinseltown, while many of us shake our heads and mutter “Why bother?”
My thoughts?
Retain our representational form of government at the state level, disband the federal Congress, allow the Governors to appoint/elect the president, and shake down the federal monolith to where it exists strickly to maintain infrastructure. We are too big and diverse a people to be governed from a central location, and if we don’t change then there is gonna be one hell of a crash.
19,
there COULD be success, BUT, its all being done WRONG.
Pull the men out of the city.
Cordon off the diff sections, and LET THE AREAS police there OWN sections…THEY know who lives in there area.
SET our men OUTSIDE and monitor ALL incoming and OUT going…
Those militants INSIDE that want to fight the USA, have to come OUT to shoot at us. We control the roads IN/OUT of the city.
LET them have their civil war…LET THEM decide what they wish to do…
But even as a police action, this could take YEARS…probably LESS then the ‘No mans land’ of Korea and vietnam…but STILL along time.
What are the criteria for determining which ads by political action organizations are worthy of Senate debate? Is it the size of the ad, the amount of money spent, or its message that makes it such an important item of business for the American people and their elected representatives?
I think #15 GigG actually would have been right on the money if he had not said the following with sarcasm…
“Barack Obama and Joe Biden abstained.
That’s the way to show leadership. “
Refusing to participate at these lower levels may indeed have been the wisest course of action.
#15 – “Barack Obama and Joe Biden abstained.”
That’s the way to show leadership.
That’s a way to say, “you guys are scrapping in the mud. We aren’t coming down to your level.”
#16 – What happen to Jeffersons and Franklins bla bla bla…”
Jefferson and Franklin were statesmen and patriots and as founding fathers, they are worthy of great respect… but let’s quit holding these guys up like they were gods… They were capable men who answered the call to serve, not unlike many of those who serve today. And like everyone today, they were flawed and they also made mistakes.
I guarantee that if Jefferson and Franklin were alive today, Hannity and Limbaugh would call them traitors, and the press would be hounding Jefferson about his adulterous affair with a black housekeeper while Republicans would be moving to impeach Franklin amidst scandal over his almost 65 illegitimate children.
According to Dan Rather’s new 70 million dollar lawsuit, even CBS caved into the Bush Administration, so why should Senate Democrats be any different? And of course, courage Dan Rather caved into CBS.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – democracy just doesn’t work.
-Kent Brockman
Sounds The Alarm >> #7 Democrats are cowards – they have shown this over and over again.
I think it took more than a little guts for MoveOn to call-out Petraeus for putting Whitehouse policy above the troops.
What have Republicans done that takes more guts than that?
The behavior of many Dems, let alone Reps, in our legislature simply makes no sense, What could cause men to cast away their political power to a transparent fool, while utterly ignoring the will of the people, who are obviously going to cast them out for their performance? Is there something in the water? Or have they been so psychologically damaged by years of fear mongering, years of promises that Anthrax is the least of their troubles if they don’t submit, that they are suffering from some unique form of collective Stockholm syndrome? I don’t know, but I’m a little sorry that I can’t vote against any of those men who think it’s a good idea to violate their oath to the constitution by censuring the speech of the citizenry, no matter how vile they might think it to be. Obama might have had the right idea, in that this is not the Senate’s concern at all.
These events should be the real test for the voters
Not stale tv debates
Not talk shows – leno or letterman
Not inverviewers like Charlie Rose who don’t follow through on questions asked
But the inability to take a stand when something is wrong and say so and not be intimidated by George Soros
If there is one thing about George Bush at least he takes a stand rather than all of these and even Hillary Clintons – change the subject don’t answer the question approach
As they say ” the silence is deafening”
Here’s a novel thing for me….Obama stated that he abstained because he felt that the Senate had no business having this vote, period. Biden also gave the almost same reason. They at least made a real stand. Obama has nothing to prove on the war issue….he may not be someone I would consider voting for, he at least has been consistent on the war….opposing it from the begining.
The General isn’t lying either. The only people that haven’t acknowledged that the surge is working are the die hard far left and Harry Reid. Unfortunatly, and the General mentioned this in his report, the political situation has not improved, and both the surge had to work and the goverment had to resolve important issues or it would all be for naught. If you can’t do the research to find the truth, that more and more of Iraq is becoming more and more safe(as opposed to a complete disaster), then you don’t want to find the truth.
What is looking more and more like the end to this part of the war is this…..there will be enough security and the Iraqi troops will be trained enough to hold off the al quida forces……after we leave, but the goverment will collapse completely and we will be stationing troops in the Kurdish areas to keep Iran from overrunning them. The country will split between Iranian controlled shia areas and Saudi controled sunni areas and the Kurds will declare independence.
13–ArianeB, could it be “only” because I agree 100%, or is this in fact your best post to date?
I have seen/heard NO ONE comment (blog wise or national news) that the Betrayus Report to the Senate’s most famous line was completely flawed. The Exchange: “WARNER: Does that make America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I don’t know actually. I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind. What I have focused on and been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the Multinational Force in Iraq.”
Is America Safer? NO ONE should care what Petraeus answer would be, its not his job. YES, Petraues betrayed us. While his answer was quite honest and correct in every regard, he “should have” said “I’m a General. I do what I am ordered to do. Whether we are safer or not is a determination to be made and acted upon by the Congress==not your generals, and not the President. YOU fuckwits are in charge. If you were in my army, you’d be in the stockade.”
This bill does NOTHING! It isn’t binding, nor is it a law. It is merely a statement that the Senate does not condone criticism of the militray. It does not name MoveOn.org, or any other group.
This is merely grandstanding by hypocritical Republicans. I understand why some Dems voted the way that they did. This legislation is MEANINGLESS!!! The Republicans who put this up for a vote, have criticized the military in the past themselves. Can you say Max Cleland?
This only helped MoveOn.org raise more much needed money, in people’s outrage with the Senate, which is really ill founded.
Time to move on now!