MOVE OUT, MOVEON. Ending the war, restoring Habeas Corpus, ending unconstitutional torture, illegal detention and spying on Americans, not to mention putting an end to environmental disaster, screwing the poor and politicizing the judiciary, are too important to be left to self absorbed, immature, politically ignorant amateurs.
Every factual refutation of the testimony of General Petraeus in MoveOn's Petraeus/Betrayus ad was correct. The same points were made by numerous news reports and columnists. But thanks to MoveOn's incredibily self indulgent and politicaly stupid decision to be "clever", the truth about Petraeus' utterly misguided and false depiction of the facts on the ground was buried by the storm of protest over the depiction of a respected, oft decorated General as nothing more than a traitor.
Sure the facts are more important than an ad, and sure the conduct of the Bush administration is infinitely more imporant than a mistake by MoveOn -but, to paraphrase a certain unfortunately fictional President, these are serious times, and they require serious people. The cost of MoveOn's amateur wordplay? Probably the loss of a filbuster proof majority on Webb's deployment bill, the loss of a filibuster proof majority on the resortation of Habeas Corpus, and the loss of dozens of Democratic votes to cut off spending without a deadline for withdrawal, thus providing the embarrasing picture of a Democratic party unable to even muster a majority for ending the war. All because an organization which purports to represent liberal opponents of the war is apparently led by political morons.
This anti-war liberal resigned from MoveOn the day after the ad appeared. So should every other anti war, pro-Constitution liberal/progressive who values results over juvenile self importance.