posted
I didn't see this on any of the news sites that I normally check, though to be fair I missed the news in the last day, so it might have flashed on and off the front page.
The Censure came as a similar version put forward by Barbara Boxer was shot down, that version would have been less stringent, and would have included Republican supported attacks against Max Cleland and John Kerry. Many Democrats abstained from the vote, and all Republicans supported it. The Censure doesn't really have any teeth to it, it doesn't do anything other than make a formal statement from the Senate that they disapprove of the exercise of free speech from Moveon. I find it amazing that the Senate can get together to censure Moveon for an exercise of free speech, no matter how ill conceived, but they can't get together to censure Bush for his numerous errors and ill conceived usages of speech.
Oddly, (to me anyways), the World Can't Wait, some sort of advocacy group was denied space on the back page of the Metro, a paper in NYC, for these two ads. Now the one with the nuclear cloud is a little much, but the one about Afghanistan and dead Iraqis is extremely similar to ads I've seen from Republicans and Democrats alike in the presidential race. While I think the paper has a right to deny ad space to anyone they want, I think the uproar over ads like that is riduculous when you single them out. Either all these bombastic ads are wrong, or they are all okay. I think in a way it does come down to a restriction of free speech though, but it's done through popular approval. If 50% of the population stands up to say they will respond negatively to a professment of free speech, and the paper knows that their negativity is mirrored by a possible censure from Congress, I think that creates undue and unfair pressure against the potential adbuyer on the part of the paper. Now if they were advocating some sort of treasonous behavior against the government or something, then surely there's a case to be had, but an article just as flagrant was published the following week by Giuliani (similar to the moveon ad I mean) and there was zero uproar over it. So what we're saying then, is not that we hate bombastic advertising, in fact we really seem to respond rather well to it, but that we will allow a small group of EXTREMELY loud individuals control what we can and cannot say with regard to political speech in this country. I think that violates at least the spirit of the first amendment.
Frankly I think the whole Moveon.org debacle is indicative of a larger problem. This article in TIME sums up my feelings about this goofy hullabalooo fairly well. Are we the American citizen REALLY stupid enough to be manipulated by this sort of speech? That's where my outrage is targeted towards. I find it saddening that we're intellectually dumb enough to not be able to separate out attacks on a person from attacks on an institution. When I say I don't like the President and I think he's a horrible leader, I'm not saying I hate America. If I were to say that I don't like Gen. Petreaus, and I think he's a horrible leader, I'm not saying I hate the American military. Criticizing a leader does not automatically criticize the institution they lead. It's just as, if not more, logical to assume that such a criticism is actually in defense of that institution.
The Senate censure of Moveon is too much. I'm mildly, but not seriously concerned by the example it sets for attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. My main concern is what we're allowed to say, and what we demand our leaders to say.
Edit to add: Just a bit more info, I've been looking for more stories on this as well as the text of the resolution, but I haven't found it yet. The resolution however "condemned" Moveon.org. The same sort of language we usually reserve for countries like North Korea, Iran, and abusers of civil and human rights. John McCain also said they should be "thrown out of the country."
I mean hey, what could be more American than suppressing political dissidents!
Edited again to add: After some thought, this is the blog entry I came up with to summarize my feelings on the subject. It's still a little unpolished as I wrote it, much as I wrote this post, in the heat of a very long moment. It might be a little rambly at points, but I think it really gets to the heart of the issue, which isn't Petreaus, or moveon.org, it's the politics of manipulation, and how stupid much of America is for going along with it, or how little faith politicians have in us to assume we will. Anyway, I'm always happy to receive constructive criticism.
quote:Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate--
(1) to reaffirm its support for all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, including General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force--Iraq;
(2) to strongly condemn any effort to attack the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces; and
(3) to specifically repudiate the unwarranted personal attack on General Petraeus by the liberal activist group Moveon.org.
posted
Oh well thank goodness that congress isn't wasting our bloody time with useless grandstanding or anything now.
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posted
I think MoveOn.org was idiotic to hand the Bush supporters such a big target and rallying point, when they could have so easily produced a less-sensational but tougher to dispute ad. A full page ad with just some simple questions would have been better.
"Gen. Patraeus, you've been promoted to Harbinger of the Second Coming of the Iraq War by an adminstration that knows the American people will no longer believe them. Can you answer these questions, to the best of your ability?
"How long do you think a presence of at least 130,000 American troops will be required in Iraq?
"Do you believe that al-Maliki -- or anyone -- is capable of forming a cohesive Iraqi government at this time?
"If we pull out, do you believe the people we are now fighting in Iraq will follow us home?"
[ September 25, 2007, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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posted
What good could the censure possibly do? I mean, what do they hope it will accomplish? If anything, they're just giving moveon.org more ammunition.
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posted
So they have on record a) that they were appalled and, therefore, more patriotic, and b) that some Dems voted against it making them, therefore, less patriotic. Same reason the Dems tried to censure Bush even though they had to know it would have no effect whatsoever.
I think the Dems need to settle on a coherent Iraq plan that gets the bulk of the troops out while continuing to train the Iraqui forces, and then start introducing that plan in Congress. And when it loses, introduce it again. Again. Unchanged, no compromising. And again, right up until the election. A goodly chunk of the American people want us out, let's show everyone exactly whom they have to vote for to accomplish that.
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posted
Condemning someone's words isn't an attack on freedom of speech; it's an exercise of it.
I wish Congress would do more of this sort of thing and spend less effort on restricting our liberties. It's hot air, but at least that's all it is.
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posted
The problem was that they chose the word "betray". Treason is punishable by death in the military. Actually, I think citizens can also be convicted of treason. I mean, they probably just saw it as an amusing pun, but it happens to be a deadly serious libel.
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Not in any legal sense of the word libel, most likely (a court might decide otherwise, but I doubt it). It is extremely insulting, and a very poor choice of words.
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posted
Especially when the accusation of treason is directed at a person whose shoes these pothead punks aren't fit to shine. The man has devoted his life to service to this country. Few people probably realize what it takes to get to where he is, and his pay is in the low six figures so he doesn't do it for the money. Did he do it so that he could tell lies for a president and a party that is on its way out? What have these bloggers done for their country, besides try to undermine the war where our own soldiers are fighting and dying? And they have the audacity to impugn his honor?
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posted
Wow. Resh, you're better than any argument against your own position that I can come up with. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Btw, I fully support individual members of Congress condemning the ad. The problem I have is with them banding together to act as the Congress of the United States of America in order to condemn the free speech of a group of private citizens.
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posted
Remember when they unanimously condemned the Circuit Court decision that found the "under God" portion of the Pledge unconstitutional? At the time, I pointed out that Congress couldn't even unanimously agree to censure something as obviously flawed as the Dred Scott decision, and bemoaned the kind of empty, grandstanding pandering that was involved in their useless "censure."
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posted
Resh: If you can admit that its perfectly logical and rational to be president for less then altruistic motives I'll feel much better about your statement.
Heck even agreeing that though the president has a modest salery on paper that there are many avenues which he/she can persue to make money.
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posted
Would you feel the same if they had a picture of John Kerry or Hillary Clinton with the headline of the ad saying "TRAITOR!" Does it bother you that Moveon.org was charged a much lower rate?
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posted
Well, yeah. Remind me why it is the government's business what a private group of citizens charges another private group of citizens for an ad?
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DK: I didn't say they didn't interfere, I said (well, implied) they shouldn't interfere. Those are two different statements.
And what happened didn't violate any of the current restrictions, either (did it have anything to do with someone running for office or other item coming up for general vote? no? then none of the campaign finance laws apply, even if they might were it an election ad), so even as far as the current legal regime is concerned it is none of the government's business.
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posted
You know, I caught a glimpse of an old movie in which some Senator or other was trying to get back to congress after having been exposed to a very contagious disease. Of course, it was all about trying to find him and treat him before he infected and killed most of our elected representatives.
I watched it for all of ten minutes, and was somewhat appalled to find myself rooting for him to make it there. *sigh* I even had a scene of him wandering around sneezing on people.
*wanders off to take more cold medicine*
It's not that I agree with MoveOn (I was on their mailing list a very long time ago, when their main issue was still SSM and they weren't acting like ... (searching for family-friendly word) ... erm, like they are now). I just wish that Congress could agree on something important instead of empty gestures.
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posted
No, the Swift Boat attacks were plenty. It's not like this was the first time a military leader was publicly maligned; I can think of a few in just the last few years...
As I said, MoveOn should not have attacked Patraeus directly. But attacking his figures or conclusions is fair game.
Reshpeckobiggle - sorry, that will never, ever work for me, and should not for any American. No one is above question, no one should get the benefit of the doubt in this situation. I can respect a man highly while still believing him to be mistaken -- it happens on this forum quite often, in fact -- and I don't think even you can deny we have had military leaders in the past who turned out to be nutjobs.
I can appreciate the job and the service to the country, but if he tells me the moon is missing I'm going to go look.
[ September 25, 2007, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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quote:I just wish that Congress could agree on something important instead of empty gestures.
Amen. I want them to actually accomplish something.
Apparently so does the rest of the country. The approval rating for Congress as a whole is 11%. Eleven percent! That's worse than the presidents!
Unfortunately, I think that also most people think that while Congress in general sucks, their congressman is jimdandy.
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posted
I don't see how it wasn't libel. But I'm just a product of the public education system, no one special.
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First, they never actually say he was a traitor. Posing a question, or saying we'll see if he 'betrays us' (the two things they did do), are not libel, particularly for public figures, and even moreso when it is political speech. Specifically, in a libel suit they would need to show actual malice, which means, as the wikipedia page remarks,
quote:"knowledge that the information was false" or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."
Since the definition of betrayal is extremely subjective, and the statements are not saying he has betrayed anyone, but that his future statements should be paid attention to to determine if he does, it would be very difficult to show that they knew the statements were false. Specifically, they would have to be shown to know that under whatever definition of betray they intended (which just seems to be, did bad things for the country, in context), Petraeus was going to do that in the future!
The rest of the ad is relatively innocuous, mostly just general political rhetoric. They say he is "at war with the facts", quote him a few times, say he "will not admit what everybody knows", and remark on something he's said. None of that is remotely libelous.
The ad isn't libelous at all. You can say just about anything about a public figure that is an opinion without being liable for libel.
I'm also a product of the public education system. One of my classes at the public university I attended was on Communications Law.
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quote: I'm a little worried about upcoming fights over funding for Iraq, inasmuch as they might distract us from discussing the Moveon ad. --Matt Stoller
posted
Personally, I think that the Senate should pass a resolution mocking those rough, tough, conservatives who were soooo offended by this ad and calling for an official change of address to those in the Senate who got worked up about this as Senator Sissy Pants.
But, if we're on that vein, I think there should be a law changing the mascot of the Democratic party to the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz.
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posted
That being said, the MovOn ad was stupid. What possible effect did they think they were going to have? Right now, it's looking like a win for the Republicans in their constant fight to make the actual conditions in Iraq not the issue and everything as someone else's fault.
They would have, in my opinion, done much better to do something like what Chris laid out.
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posted
Blackblade, yes, I can admit that; Chris, I agree, no one is above question. But flippant accusations of treason toward someone of this man's caliber is inexcusable. All he did was say something that they didn't want to hear, because they are too busy stamping their feet with their fingers in their ears.
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Resh, nothing is as extreme as your making it out to be. The accusations weren't flippant, they had some kernel of truth to them, the man isn't perfect, no one is, and the MoveOn people aren't blindly spending money and shooting accusations without a basis, they have some sound reason for doing what they're doing. The truth always lies somewhere inside the extremes.
That's different than the right / wrong / legality of what they're doing.
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Did you read the ad, Resh? One of the things they do have a point about is that the military excludes numerous deaths from their death counts for very arbitrary reasons, meaning the military can report lower death counts when a decrease did not actually occur.
You're right its something they didn't want to hear. I would hope you wouldn't want to hear deceptive death toll numbers artificially changed to make the situation seem better, either.
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posted
I disagree, but that's because I start with different premises. It's a rabbit hole, and I don't have the time or energy to go into it (I'm avoiding the evolution debate right now for the same reason). I just think that the motivations behind the attack are malicious, boneheaded, and harmful in many ways, and whatever possible reasoning exists (such as those that fugu pointed out) is insufficient to support the accusations.
For instance, the military doesn't do anything for arbitrary reasons. Maybe they are looking for ways to artificially decrease the death count in an effort to counter the constant propaganda that is being produced by the leftists right here in our own country who are contributing to those continued deaths. No, the betrayal lies with the leftists and the anti-war crowd who are unable to recognize that they are effectively sabotaging every effort to preserve our country and culture.
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Perhaps you didn't read that I thought the ad, overall, was stupid, Resh?
And you can probably chalk up ten or twenty 'liberal' votes just to your posts on hatrack, btw (I'm exaggerating . . . maybe), so if you really believe like you say you do, you should go away.
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quote:Maybe they are looking for ways to artificially decrease the death count in an effort to counter the constant propaganda that is being produced by the leftists
Good lord, and you think that's a good thing?
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quote:Maybe they are looking for ways to artificially decrease the death count in an effort to counter the constant propaganda that is being produced by the leftists
That was one of the many things that bothered me about General Patraeus's testimony. There was no doubt that he was there as an advocate of the current plan. He appeared to believe that his job was not to inform Congress as to the progress of things and to give his opinion of what would happen if we continued on our present course or if we did something else, but rather to convince people to support the current plan and that the suggested alterations would lead to some poorly specified disaster.
---
edit: I am amazed that anyone would come out and say it is a good thing for the military to intentionally make up things to persuade people that what they are doing is right.
I don't think you have much of a leg to stand on when you say "They shouldn't say that he is betraying us." and then turn around and say "Well, he is probably just massively betraying the public's trust so that people will let the Bush administration do what they want."
quote:Maybe they are looking for ways to artificially decrease the death count in an effort to counter the constant propaganda that is being produced by the leftists
Good lord, and you think that's a good thing?
Seconded. That's a truly amazing political statement: the hand-picked US commander in Iraq should be allowed to make up death count figures in support of their continued mission in Iraq? Resh, perhaps you're too young or too busy to have heard of the bogus body counts that came out of Viet Nam on a daily basis, but it's a major reason why the military lost credibility for a generation.
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quote:It's a rabbit hole, and I don't have the time or energy to go into it (I'm avoiding the evolution debate right now for the same reason).
I suppose it is much easier to hide behind the bleachers and throw feces. You can even put little wrappers on the feces that say "My Informed Opinion" -- although of course just having the label won't make it so.
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posted
May I nominate myself as the hatracker with the most words put into his mouth by others? I never said I thought it was a good thing. I just said it wasn't arbitrary. It's a bad thing, but the fact that a propaganda war is occurring right here at home while soldiers whose fates are affected by this war is the real betrayal. If you don't like the war, fine. But actively working toward our defeat is treason, whether or not one gets prosecuted for it. And if the leader of the men whose lives are on the line is working pro-actively to diminish those efforts, at least his cause is noble, even if his methods are dishonest.
This is a hypothetical, by the way. I know nothing about any tinkering with the numbers.
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quote:And if the leader of the men whose lives are on the line is working pro-actively to diminish those efforts, at least his cause is noble, even if his methods are dishonest.
Yeah, but you just took issue with people suggesting that this man was betraying us and then suggested that he was betraying us.
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posted
What is it if you believe the entire situation is a mistake and is costing us lives? Gen. Patreaus may be an honorable man and a miracleworker, but his goal is not the whole of the mission even though attention has been pulled away from the entire war to focus on his small part of it.
A group of people are beating you up. One of them is trimming your nails. The Administration and Congress is currently arguing over whether or not your nails are being trimmed in an adequate manner and if your manicurist should be funded through the next year. Me, I'm thinking well done, great nails, but how about we stop the beating?
But I guess questioning the beating is treasonous, since once our President commits to something, no matter how bone-headed, we must all lockstep behind.
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quote:But actively working toward our defeat is treason, whether or not one gets prosecuted for it
Bah. And you wonder why no one takes you seriously.
Who is worse, the man who makes a mistake, the man who covers it up, or the man who tries to tell the truth about it?
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Was Lincoln treasonous when he criticized the motives and methods of the Mexican War?
Or Roosevelt?
quote: "The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", May 7, 1918
I think you may need to reconsider what it means to live in a democracy.
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posted
What an awesome quote, Kate. It addresses exactly what I find so disturbing about the opinion so many hold. That, right or wrong, we stand by our President simply because he's our leader. To call dissent treason is simply a bi-product of this basic idea, that a leader is infallible.
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posted
I believe that Move On. Org made a serious tactical mistake with this ad.
The result was injury to the reputation of an outstanding American general.
Congress has mostly healed that wound with this Censuring.
But then, this Administration made several serious tactical mistakes (disbanding the Iraqi military, de-baathification without consideration for what these unemployables would do, undermanned and underplanned post war activities, etc, etc).
They resulted in injuries to tens of thousands of American soldiers of many ranks, and the deaths of 3 thousand others, and most of them Outstanding. It has also been a major contributor to the deaths of tens of thousand Iraqi civilians, injuries to untold others, and growth in the ranks of those who would injure all of us.
The General was called in to try and correct these mistakes.
Mistakes, including those that limit or block the healing needed by so many of those injured, but that is another argument.
The question is, can those mistakes be corrected. Can Iraq be healed by the treatment he is providing.
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I don't think the moveon.org ad injured his reputation. Moveon only said the things that everyone else had been saying when Democrats were questioning him in committee. Any injury done was of his own making, Moveon just put it front and center. Their problem is that one bad play on words negated all the meat of their ad, and gave Republicans a lot of firepower.
It gave Democrats a chance too, but they squandered it. Hillary came closest to making something meaningful of it, but she caved too. I never even heard comments from the others. I don't think Congress solved anything with the Censure. It was a blusterfrick (there, I coined a new term). That's all it was, blustery blowhard Republicans out for PR points. Much as I hate to keep it going, Democrats should have the next day fired back by condeming a Republican sponsored ad against a Democrat. Why? To put in the spotlight how outlandish it was to begin with. Mockery, in other words.
The censure made Democrats look weak and confused (which I think they are, when it comes down to it, they friggin SUCK at political maneuvering). It gave Republicans a tiny, tiny bit of breathing space on Iraq as they hitched their cart to Petreaus' buggy. But that's it. No wounds healed, no divides bridged. If anything it has left them further apart.
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