Here's the text of the MoveOn ad:

GENERAL PETRAEUS OR

GENERAL BETRAY US?

Paid for by Moveon.org Political Action, political.moveon.org, not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress.”

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there. We’ll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won’t hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

They also provide a page with links to information to support their assertions. Come on, folks. You've been complaining about the lack of spine in the efforts to stop the war and here is a good example of using Republican tactics to confront Republicans. This is taking their process of attacking the messenger, but adding the advantage of basing it on truths rather than distortions and providing supporting evidence.

I say well done.

She was very impressive.

I also was impressed with the questions from Rep. Sherman. He asked Petraeus if he would follow the Constitution or his Commander in Chief. The question was along the lines of if (that's a BIG if, I think) Congress passed a law prohibiting any spending in Iraq after March 2008 on anything other than troop safety and then President Bush refused to go along and ordered him to continue the war, what would he do?

The answer: "I'd check with my lawyer".

Not sure what to make of that, but it may not have been entirely bad...

During his testimony, Petraeus repeatedly ducked the comparison between the GAO violence numbers (Figure 4 in the GAO report) and his weekly violence numbers by saying his data is more current and that the GAO data cuts off several weeks earlier. That is true in that the GAO time line stops after July 2007 (monthly instead of weekly) and the Petraeus chart stops after September 7, so ostensibly six more weeks are covered in his report.

However, if you look closely, the September 7 numbers are identical to the preceding week. They are identical in both the total and in each of the four components of the total. Clearly, they just repeated the final week of August and said that would be the numbers for the first week of September. If they will cook the end of the graph, what else did they cook? Of course, this will be attributed to an error due to the extreme pressure from the press.

Nonetheless, the ultimate counter-example would be finding the right calling an active duty soldier a traitor.

Will,

You need only check any right-wing site for its reaction to the Seven Soldiers Op-Ed. There was plenty of invective, including labels of treason. Tragically, I guess we now need to refer to it as the Five Soldiers and Two Martyrs Op-Ed. (See War Room)

Google Berayus today and Google responds,
Did you mean Petraeus?

The shrillness of the Republicans aside, this move has, as several in this thread have pointed out, set in everyone's mind the association between Petraeus and betrayal. This is the sort of event that can actually prompt discussions between people who disagree, rather than the usual echo chambers on each side. It also has the potential to move large portions of the electorate.

Some of us on the left do take comfort from feeling that the meme contains within it kernels of truth. Strictly parroting Bush's "stay the course" line, in the face of very convincing evidence to the contrary, does indeed feel like betrayal to many of us.

Contrast this meme with some of the more effective ones put forward by the other side. I was only able to watch John McCain's segment of the hearing yesterday for about 90 seconds, because he immediately couched the options we face as continuing the "good fight" as contrasted to "surrender" in the form of withdrawal. This meme is entirely distorted from reality in that many see withdrawal as the truly patriotic and responsible course of action. Adherence to this meme, without a replacement, renders withdrawal impossible before 2009.

Remember "It's the economy, stupid"? This was probably the last meme that provided any Democratic success. It, like this one, was also founded entirely in reality. It successfully moved the campaign from Republican areas of perceived strength in foreign policy (end of Cold War, Gulf War I) to critically important domestic policies in which Clinton's perceived populism provided a clear advantage. He then rode this meme to victory.

Postscript: Kitt, you have been suggesting on another thread that the Betrayus name initially came from within his own troops. Could you provide us with a link? Thanks.