Letters to the Editor
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I'm afraid they're right
About MoveOn. I have sent untold thousands to them over the years but I've always cringed at their ads. They have a sledgehammer level of subtlety, which MoveOn justifies as being necessary to get through people's thick skulls. But the term "tone-deaf" is appropriate. Shrill, nasty and insensitive to the need to lead people to the light, not drag them. It's a shame, they could do so much more with a little more Mad Ave. and a little less Jerry Rubin.
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@ DrEyeball
Ask the Dixie Chicks.
-- DrEyeBall
Would you like to clarify that remark? After all, The Dixie Chicks won every grammy available, and had their song and CD sell tremendously well, all over the civilized world, even without any airplay from the Republican owned monopoly of Clear Channel radio stations which are prominent all over the US.
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Yesterday in the Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer brought it up again
Here it is, Monday afternoon yesterday, and the MoveOn controversy was a dead issue last Friday. So Blitzer just has to ask his guests what they think of the "MoveOn Controversy."
Isn't it interesting that this story only exists in the studios of the cable news networks?
Who fucking cares!!
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You're Avoiding the Issue, Glenn
The issue is a certain level of respect for the armed services. Ads with a juvenile mocking of the man's name is highly disrespectful.
Measured, reasoned, rational rebuttals to the General's assertions are one thing, such as your running through the poll data. Calling the man a liar are quite another.
MoveOn.Org and its followers will do for the Republicans what extreme Right Wing Nuts did for the Democrats: it will keep them relevent.
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Spinus regeneratus?
Is it possible that the Dems are actually paying attention to the poll numbers that Glenn discusses today? Two developments suggest that they finally understand that they have the upper hand, if they simply will seize the opportunity.
First, it was announced yesterday that funding for the occupation could be delayed until November.
Democrats are poised to delay money for the Iraq war by several weeks, giving them time to calculate their next move and see if Republican support for President Bush's policies deteriorate.
In fact, Representative John Murtha realizes the anger that is out here over the lack of progress in stopping the war.
"There's a lot of anger out there," Murtha told reporters Monday at the National Press Club. "A lot of people are very unhappy with the Democrats because we haven't been able to get anything done."
Link: http://tinyurl.com/2hx47w
Next, Senators Leahy and Schumer intend to use the confirmation hearings for Mukasey as bait to extract subpoenaed documents from the White House:
But two Democrats who will have a powerful say over whether Mr. Mukasey gets confirmed — Senators Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and Charles E. Schumer of New York — vowed on Monday to use the nomination to extract information from a reluctant White House.
“All I want is the material we need to ask some questions about the former attorney general’s conduct, on torture and warrantless wiretapping, so we can legitimately ask, ‘Here’s what was done in the past, what will you do?”’ Mr. Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, said.
Link:http://tinyurl.com/2yx64h
Much as we would like immediate action on both ending the war and exposing the full extent of injustice at the Justice Department, these are concrete actions with the potential for significant successes.
Unspoken in the effort to delay the debate on further funding for Iraq is what I think is an underlying assumption that within a few more weeks, the violence level will rise again as the weather cools. It is vitally important that the GAO continue to update its violence documentation and provide up to date figures once the debate begins. By having the debate occur when data will be available after the "summer slowdown" seen every year in this debacle, Congress will have yet another powerful demonstration of the limitless wrongness of continuing according to Bush's plan.
Similarly, the Dems need to hold their noses and be willing to risk extension of the term of Acting AG Keisler in return for forcing the Bushies to hand over the documentataion of their illegal and immoral manipulation of the Justice Department. By then following up with the questions Leahy suggests, further concrete progress will be made.
All it will take is a spine, and maybe we are witnessing the regeneration of one.
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You're Just Hopelessly Out of Fashion, Glenn
Don't you know that wrong is the new right? Incompetent is the new competent? False is the new true? Up is the new down? I'll bet you're wearing white shoes right now.
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The Effect of the MoveOn.Org Ad
"At least the Moveon soundbite made the news, and Republicans were forced to deal with it." Anonymous
But the republicans weren't "forced" to deal with it - they elected to exploit it, confident that the media would parrot their line and draw attention away from Petraeus's pathetic testimony.
The media should have dismissed the coordinated republican attack on MoveOn.Org as just another hyper-partisan talking point. They should have recognized it as an attempt to manipulate media coverage. They should have focused on Petraeus's inability to assure us that the Iraq war was "making us safer", and ignored the rightwing noise over the MoveOn.Org ad.
My recollection is that Richard Cohen was representative of D.C.At least the Moveon soundbite made the news, and Republicans were forced to deal with it. Many reported to abhor the Swift Boat campaign, but few were willing to make the Swift Boat ad campaign a litmus test for decency; few criticized bush for failing to repudiate the ad. By contrast, the pundits are now virtually unanimous that every democrat must repudiate the MoveOn.Org ad, and that any democrat who refuses to is an enemy of decency.
I suppose I'm just wailing in the wind. Cohen and Broder will never acknowledge their hypocrisy or change their ways. I'm rather certain that both are fully aware of their double standard for the right and left spin machines. But I can't think of another way to fight these guys. All we can do is continue to expose people like Cohen and Broder as frauds, and hope that that fair and open-minded people see the rightwing gears operating their pens.