I think Matt Stoller asked excellent questions and was really well prepared. I think Gen. Wesley Clark explained very concisely why Stoller’s view of the MoveOn situation is ultimately wrong. There are some things I could quibble about in Clark’s answers and there are some points that Matt makes with which I agree.
But, at the end of the day, MoveOn.org’s advertisement did not succeed in its mission. And I think it is wrong to hand the Democratic caucus a lit stick of dynamite and then freak out when they throw it back at you.
I know that there are a lot of people that are angry that the party did not have MoveOn’s back. MoveOn made a tactical mistake. Their facts were basically correct (although not entirely). The analogy I made was:
1. Let’s say that you are designing an advertisement for a new Cadillac. And for some reason you decide to put a giant banana on the top of the car.
2. Let’s say that you test market the ad and discover that viewers remember the banana, but not the make and model of the car.
In that case, the giant banana has detracted from the message the ad was supposed to convey. Well…the BETRAY US message was the giant banana.
The rest of the ad might have accurately conveyed the gas mileage and safety rating of the Cadillac, but no one cares. They didn’t even retain that information. All they saw was a great big banana.
Now, the argument I keep hearing is that the Republicans would have found a different giant banana if MoveOn hadn’t provided one for them. That might be true. But it wouldn’t have been harmful to MoveOn…it wouldn’t have been so easily exploitable.
The other thing I keep hearing people say is that the Dems were cowardly or disloyal for not backing MoveOn up. I can agree with that and at the same time assert that they didn’t ask for this hand grenade. Don’t pull the pin and hand them a hand grenade and then act all hurt when they don’t fall on it for your sake.
MoveOn took a big hit today. What I would have liked to see is the entire Democratic caucus simply abstain from the vote using Barack Obama’s rationale. That would have been a good way to show contempt for gotcha politics.
Hopefully, MoveOn will learn from this experience. I don’t think they really understood how much respect General Petraeus has on the Hill. And they certainly didn’t understand how much of a taboo they were violating when they accused our lead general in Iraq of betrayal.
They weren’t wrong and it was an innocent mistake. I’m not angry with MoveOn. I just hope they make better decisions in the future because I fully support what they do.
“MoveOn took a big hit today. What I would have liked to see is the entire Democratic caucus simply abstain from the vote using Barack Obama’s rationale. That would have been a good way to show contempt for gotcha politics.”
If they had done that, I wouldn’t have been so angry.
but they didn’t, which was stupid, self-defeating, and alienated a powerful part of the base.
like I said, I’ve washed my hands. they can go get fucked for all i care.
Come on, as fun as name calling can be it is a childish school yard tactic. I don’t understand what all the outrage is about the Dems voting the way they did. If I didn’t know better I would think that some Rovian plant suggested that we start chanting schoolyard chants at our Generals.
Sure Petreaus appears to be a sycophant and a kiss ass, and that according to his military superiors, but we lose when we stoop to their level. Dikensian phone calls yes, school yard chants no.
I rather like Booman’s analogy, MoveOn lit a big firecracker and is not confused that it blew up in its face. The amendment in question should have never come to a vote and the Dems shouldn’t have voted for it, but it really doesn’t matter. Be upset that they didn’t force a real filibuster over the Webb amendment, be upset that our rights are seeping away, be upset that we have no fiscal policy, but why should a silly censure motion about a silly name calling ad get you that angry?
I’m more concerned with the other vote we lost today. Who cares what the Senate thinks about a stupid ad? Only 28 Senators had the cojones to fight Bush today. Talk about demoralizing…
A continuation of yesterday’s crushing blows…and a reminder that all we really seem to succeed at is documenting the atrocities.
Unfortunately, MoveOn’s childish, foolish and sophomoric ad became the story. By running this ad, they became the story, and that was a tactical error.
Maybe their level of disgust has reacehed such a point that they no longer GIVE a shit what our craven representatives think of this two-faced, ass-kissing general.
TABOO!!!
Can we not quite justly call Butch a betrayer?
Cheney and his oil lords/warlords?
Then why not Petraeus?
Latino Político pinned it, here.
Let us admit the obvious, BooMan.
The Congressional war is lost.
There is NO party to whom we can turn.
Only the people.
Let us REALLY “Move On”.
To the NEXT phase.
ANOTHER party.
A party of, by and for the people.
If we survive in a practically functioning electoral system that long, of course.
It’s been done before.
The Boston Tea Party.
Let us have an E Party!!!
And not cop out anymore.
“Not practical”, you say?
Tell that to Thomas Paine
and
Where and when do we draw the line, Booman?
Where and when?
AG
As much as I might agree with your major points, I think as much of a hit as you think MoveOn took, I think the Democrats took a greater one with regard to this vote. People are reassessing their contributions–giving them to MoveOn rather than to the Democrats.
rather than finding their spine, are asking MoveOn to lose it’s.
No wonder Bush has the smirk back. The “forces” arrayed against him are pathetic.
Your observation is very eloquent.
Forget me giving a dime to either the DSCC or the DCCC. Move-On gets whatever I can give. These people who are willing to play politics with the lives of Iraqis and our military do not deserve to continue in office. They are self-interested slime of the same essential sort as the other guys.
Move-On is just a liberal outfit that didn’t ass-kiss the existing “leadership” and look what they will do to them. Think what they are willing to do to the “little people”?
I am unbelievably disappointed in you and this site. You should be supporting MoveOn, not attacking it. If you disagree with the politics of their ad, send them a private e-mail.
If the Democrats had stood in unison today against this FoxNews/right wing attempt to divert attention, they would have had most of the public behind them. Instead, they (and you) got out-maneuvered by the right again. I’m getting so depressed at the lack of moral spine in this country that I can’t stand it.
I’m taking this site off my favorites list and sending more money to MoveOn.
I have been sending them private emails.
I’m not all that convinced that it was such a terrible thing. As Paul Krugman pointed out, the only people who paid any attention to Petreaus’s testimony were the Beltway crowd. Sure, the Republicans are all worked up about it, and why not? They’re desperate, clutching at straws.
Just as those hearings didn’t budge the poll numbers, neither will this ad. It’s too inside baseball – most people don’t read the Times, and the ones who do are tired of listening to Republicans justify this war.
Using your marketing analogy, the WAR is the banana. The MoveOn ad said, “We think this banana dealer is selling rotten bananas!” People who heard about it ONLY NOTICED THE BANANA.
I’d bet my life on it.
Even at OpenLeft the majority of the comments agree with Clark. Sometimes I think we forget where we live.
I don’t think that ad was going to change any minds. People already expected a Petraeus whitewash of the whole mess and a request for another FU. Or else they were part of the 25% who think anything Bush does is just hunky-dory by them.
Please read Jane
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/20/hey-all-you-anti-war-crazies/
At least Rep. Stark gets it.
Over at Move On a commenter has said something like the following: “The Dems think all they have to do is give the Republicans enough rope and they will hang themselves. Instead they are looping the rope around the Dems necks!”
There are a lot of ways the Dems could have “handled” today’s vote. They didn’t choose to do anything but roll over. I personally think that the Move On folks probably overreached with the original Ad. In my opinion however, we are way past the time when keeping our powder dry at all costs is the operative strategy of the day. This inertia of biding our time has become a way of life for many career types inside the beltway. These are not “normal” times. Somebody has to stand for something sometime. It would be nice if it were the Dems doing the right thing(s) NOW!
“The Dems think all they have to do is give the Republicans enough rope and they will hang themselves.
And trust me when I tell you that they’ve believed this for the better part of 10 years. I have heard this again and again.
They don’t believe they have to do anything. There are MANY things the rethugs have brought to a vote that they KNEW would not pass–but they were moving the discussion because they were making the argument.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”
Period. It doesn’t wait for the imaginary rope.
Petreuas lied in his testimony, has held briefings for Republicans only, encourages speculation about a political career
why are we calling for his court martial?
First, while Petraeus was dishonest to the extreme in the pursuit of his career, I’m not sure that moving the target off of Bush was productive.
Second, there are far, far better ways to attack. Tonight on Randi Rhodes I heard a bit (alleged comedy) that was so powerful that it needs to be a MoveOn ad: It said that the Republicans were going to BETRAY their own base, supporting the war until after their primaries, then switching. They admit to that! That means they are willing to sacrifice hundreds of our kids, and injure ten times that, in order to save their butts.
That’s Betrayal–that needs to be advertised in every medium in this nation. No Republican should be allowed to switch that way without being hung!
The military didn’t betray us. Petraeus betrayed us. KO got it right. Why couldn’t the Congressional Dems?
How hard is it to say that Petraeus has become a politician, and that in pursuit of politics he has betrayed his troops and the national interest?
Oh, it was the tone of the ad. Well WTF were those purple heart bandaids in 2004 or the accusations that Max Cleland did not support America in 2002?
It’s time to stop second-guessing those folks who are causing Republicans some political pain. Cornyn struck back because the ad had traction with ordinary people. The Republican spin machine had a hard time spinning this and still will despite the caving of the Senate Democrats. Ordinary people are not fooled by the kabuki anymore. But they are beginning to say “if the Democrats won’t stand up to Bush, how can we be sure that they will stand up to al Quaeda?” The ad had the practical effect of stopping the Petraeus charm offensive dead in the water. And for this service, MoveOn gets punished by the likely beneficiaries of this ad.
If you don’t like MoveOn’s tactics, try your own. Dollars to donuts, if you are effective some wingnut Senator will introduce a resolution to condemn you. Move over MoveOn and Michael Moore. Who’s next?
Boo, this is the most sadly asinine argument I’ve ever seen you make. You sound like a Clinton consultant. Cong. Pete Stark is one of the few who gets it:
This was only a stick of dynamite for a gang of frigging morons who couldn’t win a debate against 3-year-olds. Stark knew exactly what to say. A large majority of Americans believe Petraeus was probably lying. Petraeus’s old boss thinks he’s a sniveling asskisser.
MoveOn is not an arm of the Democratic Party, thank gods, or they’d be cretins, too, just by association. I worked my ass off doing what I hate most in the world: cold calling strangers to get out the vote for craven incompetents like McCloskey, Webb, Tester, and even — holding my nose — for Casey. MoveOn’s thousands of other volunteers gave control of the Senate to the Dems. That’s simply a fact. And yet the effort was all for nothing at all. We got a new boss. Same as the old boss.
The issue is not whether the ad was tasteful enough or aided Dem political outlooks. That wasn’t its purpose. The issue is that the craven Dems had to GO OUT OF THEIR WAY to wave their goddamn flag and do their time-honored dance of shame and horror about nothing. I agree with you on only one thing: the response should have been to say, this resolution is too trivial and stupid for us to even dignify with a response. It is beneath the dignity of the Senate. We are just going to ignore it. And then use some party discipline just once to make that happen. Or they could have stopped the thing from reaching the floor in the first place.
I don’t think you understand what has happened here. The Democrats just blew their chance for a long-term national majority. MoveOn and a very few others won them the last election. That won’t happen again. Not from MoveOn, and probably not from PFAW or anybody else that now knows what happens when you sleep with snakes. Do you still think you’re gonna get that blowout next November when all the Dems have going for them is the DLC? Lotsa luck with that.
I give up. Nader was right and I was wrong. If I ever bother with party politics again it will be for the Greens or somebody else. Not one more dime or phone call or kind word for the Democratic Party. They have yet again managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It just makes me sad that the likes of Feingold and Stark have no place better to go than this nest of syphilitic weasels.
I know the top guys at MoveOn. I’ve exchanged ideas with them today. They are not about to abandon their mission over this. I admire Pete Stark for his courage and his forthrightness and for his defense of MoveOn.
But Pete Stark is one of the most far left members of congress. I don’t say that as a criticism. I wish there were more people like Pete Stark who boldly proclaim their atheism and have never, ever appropriated a dime for war.
Pete Stark may be some kind of visionary, or he could represent the wave of the future, but right now he only represents himself.
My criticism of MoveOn is their lack of savvy, not their goal or their mission or their intent. They made a mistake. It was a technical, tactical mistake, not related with their decision to raise doubts about Petraeus’ independence and credibility.
They may not abandon their mission, but their mission is not to be patsies for a Democratic Party that does not deserve their help. Even if the MoveOn leadership does decide to swallow Dem crap and, well, move on, they won’t have the bodies to move next time around. MoveOn is not about money — it’s about people. I don’t believe the people will be there so they can be cut off at knees again by the cowards they supported.
The Democrats neutered the folks who put them in the majority. That is the plain fact. The Democrats did what the GOP could only dream of accomplishing. What would I say the next time I called for GOTV? Well, yeah the Democrats censured us, but believe me now when I say….
My first reaction to the Petraeus ad was that it was off the mark and kind of amateurish. So they wasted some money that could have been better directed at Bush. But it worked. It got people talking about Petraeus’s credibility like months of Dem mealymouthing failed to do. It’s interesting how the blogs bitch and moan day in and day out about how nobody takes it to the Bushies on their own terms. Then somebody does and it’s all fear and pious gnashing of teeth.
I almost admire the Rep legislators compared to the Dems. At least they stand by their man at the considerable risk to their own reelection. The Dems, OTOH, stampede for the exit at the first mean thing that comes out of Bill O”Reilly’s mandibles. I’ll say it again: supporting the Democratic Party is like sleeping with snakes — sooner or later they’re gonna turn on you because something scared them.
oh bullshit. MoveOn could have said the sky is blue and the rethugs would have come back with some weird ass bullshit that the sky is gray and clearly this was a liberal attempt to control weather. General Betray Us is a criminal for promulgating an unwinnable war and killing innocent people for nothing more than profit for a few.
Yeah, the truth can be harsh and it will ruffle feathers. I’m going to send my bucks to people who speak the truth and refrain from sending it to people who would rather wet the bed. I have to agree with others here, your condemnation of MoveOn sounds pretty damn wimpy to me.
But what really pisses me off is that 72 senators voted to condemn MoveOn (but not the Swift Boaters (its ok when republicans do it)), but that no where near that number voted to restore habeus corpus. What the fuck is wrong with this country?!?
Dude, I have been on your side more often than not, but you really lost me with your “logic” on this one.
“MoveOn, the organization that was condemned by the Senate for vilifying the troops.”
That’s the new and indelible moniker for MoveOn. They’re not happy about it. Their brand took a brutal hit. And I would have predicted exactly that outcome if I had advance warning. If they could have it back, they would be smarter.
That’s my point.
Do I wish the Dems had more courage? Yes. But I know them well enough to know that they are not going to fall on a hand grenade for MoveOn.org when they did not coordinate that message and even thought it was unwise to focus on the general rather than the president.
Some people are making it out like I am attacking MoveOn. I’m not. I support them. I think they screwed this up extremely badly and I think the primary blame for this lies with them, for not being smarter.
…that you’re taking this position.
you are, along w/clark, most of the dems and all the repubbbs, getting stuck on the dumb headline instead of the actual ad.
gee, instead of worrying about a headline with a bad rhyme (as i’ve said elsewhere, they’re just lucky the guy’s name wasn’t general buckhew), why not focus on passing some legislation to, oh, i don’t know, let the troops have some time off between deployments? or cutting off the funding of the war? or any goddamn thing that actually had to do with reality and not pr?
pr is only important if you let everyone in the room demand that it is. as much as everyone loves to say that perception is reality, if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth, etc etc etc, the real reality is, the laws of physics, economics and human interaction will trump good and/or bad pr everytime.
you can say a headline to an ad taken out by an organization of private citizens was a bad move, but that doesn’t negate the reality that the war is going badly and our continued presence in iraq is destroying any good will america has among the arabic peoples of this world.
you can say an ad is more important than a war but that don’t make it so.
i’m sick of these namby pamby dems trying to pussy foot their way thru the minefield of rightist anger, as if what a bunch of conservatives think about them really matter.
because you can fucking well bet that the conservatives don’t give a flying rat’s ass what we think about them.
so, as i say on my blog, no more $$ for dems (tho i did contribute to stark, as i believe in rewarding good behavior).
skippy-
the bottom line is that MoveOn got condemned by the Senate. If you had handed me that ad and asked me my opinion about how good it was and whether it should be run, I would have said that it would explode in our faces and that the Dems would run away from it. If you insisted on running it anyway, I would have said that you deserved whatever you got because the Dems didn’t sign off on attacking Petraeus and shouldn’t be expected to take all the heat for the decision.
I know that is 20/20 hindsight, but it’s the truth.
Print the same ad without the BETRAY US and it would have been effective. It wouldn’t have received all this publicity but MoveOn is not enjoying this publicity.
Boo, your desperation to blame the victim here is a wonder to behold. I don’t care what individual Dems thought of the ad (which reflected the views of a decisive number of Americans). There was no reason except their endless cowardice to even bring this silly resolution to the floor. Nader was 100 percent right, except he didn’t go far enough. Anyway, doesn’t matter. I’m done with them. And I have a feeling a lot of other folks are, too. Good luck with that landslide next year.
Twenty-two democratic senators just voted to condemn me. Even though I stand condemned, I will fight on. At least, I now know the names of the real betrayers.
Webb’s vote is especially is galling. He said his victory was due to the netroots. Well, how big of a percentage of the netroots does MoveOn’s 3,500,000 members comprise? Nearly 100% maybe?
As far as MoveOn is concerned! I say fight on! Don’t bother with what the timid and cowardly think. Fight! Fight! Fight!
They didn’t vote to condemn you, they voted not to have a 30-second commercial run against them that they never signed on for.
This isn’t rocket science. It’s called knowing what the fuck you are doing. We can wish for bolder leaders, a fairer media, etc.
Look at what is there, in reality, and act accordingly.
with the congress you’ve got, not the congress you wish you had?
Yeah, basically that is true.
you elect a new congress. that is what i’m proposing
DLC tactics have not been effective in the past and they won’t be this time either. The only good thing about this vote is that we now have 22 targets to primary in the future.
of $$$ in protest donations.
Would that others would be so direct in their speech.
It’s exactly what we need right now. Much more of it.
And direct action to challenge both parties.
Just ignore what they do. A very simple statement: MoveOn is not part of the democratic party.
It’s all about moving the debate forward. Sometimes others have to do that because you can’t.
It would have been smart of them to simply not vote on it, like Obama did.
Of course, they didn’t.
Yup, they could have all left the floor or just voted present or something like that.
I came back to this site today to check on others’ reaction to your comments yesterday about MoveOn and before removing the site from the favorites list on my work computer. I certainly saw nothing in the tone or content of your later comments to me and to others to make me change my mind.
What you have basically done is take the position that the military cannot be criticized, that it is okay for Congress to attempt to squash dissent by phony resolutions and that anyone who uses tactics with which you disagree should be left swinging in the wind. As I indicated earlier, the appropriate response to this kind of right wing/Fox News motivated campaign is to stand together in alliance or at least remain silent.
Like some of the other commentators here, I spent time with MoveOn calling voters during the last election trying to elect Democrats to Congress. It really appalls me to see so many members of the party turn on them and join the right wing.
It’s too bad. I used to check into your site 4 or 5 times a day. No more.
yeah, as a blogger, I’m not much for staying silent.
I’m sorry you disagree with me and that you have resolved not to read this blog. But I am only calling it as I see it. Republicans are the party for people that swallow their opinions and ape the talking points of their masters. I’ll never do that.
I think Boo is phenomenally, pigheadedly, blindly dead wrong on this subject. And yet we’re having a lively and mostly civil discussion on his site with no banning or posturing or censoring. I hope you think further on your impulse to depart because we just can’t afford to be as treacherous to our friends as the Democratic Party is to its friends.
Booman has a right to his opinion, too. Wrong does not always = enemy.
hey!! what do you have against pigheads!!
When Four Media Heavyweights Attacked a GENERAL
Bashing MoveOn just reinforces this double standard. Instead, we should be bashing the corporate media and the stupid, cowardly Dems.
I’m not bashing them. I am criticizing them. But more than that, I am saying that it’s wrong to flip out over this largely irrelevant non-event.
I’d hardly say that the Dem-controlled Senate passing a resolution against MoveOn for speaking the truth is a “non-event”. It’s par for the course, another demonstration that the Dem Party doesn’t give a damn for The People.
Arthur Silber has a good post on this. I highly recommend it to you.
The ruling class has told you that criticizing a (Republican) general is not acceptable, and you use your blog to reinforce that view.
Read what I write.
I have said repeatedly that he could be criticized.
Silber is right about one thing. Elected officials are never going to stand by and approve what MoveOn did. Not this Congress, not the next, or the next, or the next. One aspect of effective politics is making savvy determination like that so that you know how to operate on the playing field.
Republicans will attack former military, but they would not have attacked Wesley Clark while he was serving in Kosovo. They would have wrapped the flag around him just as tight, even though they were not even committed to his mission. It’s part of their identity to fetishize the military.
It’s a silly taboo, although it is not exactly elitist. In this case, the taboo deserved to be challenged because the Republicans were violating a taboo by allowing the military to become a political advocate and frontman. You still need to know how to challenge the taboo.
You know what I see? I see a lot of progressives who are trying to tell me that when you step on a rake and it hits you in the face, it’s the rake’s fault. It’s not the rake’s fault. You knew that it was in the yard.
Republicans will attack former military, but they would not have attacked Wesley Clark while he was serving in Kosovo.
That’s a very good point. I hadn’t thought of that. That makes the post by Bob Fertik I quoted disingenuous, I guess.
I admire your continuing to defend your position, in view of the onslaught you’ve received on this. I guess people like me are responding more emotionally, while you are thinking about this more coolly.
[I posted this by mistake in the root of the thread. Note to coder: If someone links on a link to a comment, as opposed to the whole thread, do not provide a link to “Post a Comment”, as opposed to “Reply to This Post”. (Yes, once again, it was the rake’s fault.)]
I’m not suggesting that MoveOn is immune from criticism or that people can’t disagree with their tactics. I am saying that by not backing up their right to speech and by joining the right wing chorus in the tone and timing of your criticism you are helping the right wing cause. There are excellent posts by digby and Robert Borosage at Huffington Post that express this problem more eloquently than I have. Unless true moderates and progressives stick together against these right wing ploys, the right wing will keep winning. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage
How I have I not backed up their right to free speech? I didn’t say the Senate was right to condemn them, I said it was utterly predictable that the GOP would freak and make this a huge deal and that the Dems would be left with a shit sandwich.
But they weren’t left with a shit sandwich. Nobody outside the yapping classes gave a damn. It was just the Democrat Specialized Preemptive Surrender we’ve all come to know and hate. Making and consuming shit sandwiches is just the Dem version of “leadership”.
In the end, I still think the Democrats made a far bigger mistake than MoveOn in this entire fiasco. In 2005 and 2006, I remember reading hundreds of e-mails and websites arguing that it was useless to try to elect Democrats because they were spineless. MoveOn managed to help motivate millions of people to ignore this conventional wisdom and become active in politics, in some cases (as in mine) for the first time. Yet, when faced with the predictable right wing attack on an ad that did show some spine, the Democrats didn’t just express personal disagreement, they helped pass a god damned Congressional resolution condemning it. I’m sorry, but MoveOn did not deserve that and the Democrats are wimps for allowing it. I suppose I’m hopelessly naive, but I do want supposed allies to protect my back. So I will continue to look for candidates and commentators who will do that.
I don’t think you are naive. I think you are principled.
I don’t like what the Dems did either. But what I really don’t like is that the Dems got put in a no-win situation. And if you think there was a winning angle to this, you are just wrong.
Behind the scenes, MoveOn, the Netroots, union activists, the leadership talk…all the time…all day long. And I’m not privy to some even higher level coordination. The Dems wanted to deflect the General Effect by keeping the message on Bush and Bush’s war. They knew better than to do Bush a favor and let him make this all about his general.
A lot of people disagreed, thinking that Petraeus’ credibility needed to be blunted in order to prevent his presentation from being believed on face value.
Those two things could have worked together. But they did not because the ad got personal. One thing we need to be mindful of is that no political party is going to call the commanding general in an ongoing war names. It will never happen. It’s horrible politics. Question his wisdom? Sure. Question his independence? No problem? Say he is betraying the nation? No party will do it.
It’s not showing a spine, it’s showing low brain-wave function.
I’ve got MoveOn’s back. But when they screw up I am going to say so. They need to know what they’re doing. If they are going to run an ad that is going to cause a resolution, they need to free the Dems to slam it if need be.
“Those two things could have worked together. But they did not because the ad got personal. “
It’s far beyond the time when things should have gotten personal. You know it, I know it, we all know it. And yet, this institutional sense of decorum persists. I know enough about you to know that what you really think about Petreaus isn’t fit to be read by children. So why do you protect the democrats and the American people as if they were children who can’t handle a good old fashioned smack in the ass?
All that Tarzanne is saying is that the democrats could have just as easily abstained from bringing it to the floor, let alone voting in favor of it. That tactic would have achieved two objectives. One, to let moveon know that there was a line that was crossed as far as what the democrats could publically back, and two, it would have blunted any criticism that came from the republicans as to whether the democrats supported that kind of rhetoric. And come to think of it, three, it would have preserved this bullshit idea that the U.S. Senate is somehow above crawling in the dirt.
Get off the effing framing BooMan. I know you have a low opinion of it.
btw,
Wheaties suck without Bananas.
If you read the front-page post up now you’ll realize that they couldn’t just abstain from bringing it to the floor.
Republicans will attack former military, but they would not have attacked Wesley Clark while he was serving in Kosovo.
That’s a very good point. I hadn’t thought of that. That makes the post by Bob Fertik I quoted disingenuous, I guess.
I admire your continuing to defend your position, in view of the onslaught you’ve received on this. I guess people like me are responding more emotionally, while you are thinking about this more coolly.
This was meant to be a reply to this comment. Sorry.