I received my long-awaited form-letter response to my letter to Senator Casey of Pennsylvania regarding the Senate's behavior in response to the MoveOn.org ad about General Petraeus. Like so many of us, I was outraged, and frankly, embarrassed by the Senate's response to the newspaper advertisement.. and like many others, I fired off a few emails and notes about it...
The response I got? As expected... More below, along with my own reaction back to Senator Casey.
Senator Casey's Response
----- Original Message -----
From: Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr.
Subject: Response from Senator Casey
Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding the September 10, 2007 MoveOn.org ad in the New York Times. I appreciate hearing from all Pennsylvanians about this important issue.
I met with General Petraeus when I traveled to Iraq in August and I listened carefully to his testimony in September before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which I am a member. I believe General Petraeus is an honorable man and appreciate that he has devoted his career to public service.
However, our Iraq policy is not the policy of General Petraeus; it is the policy of the President. It is unfortunate that a newspaper ad of questionable taste has shifted attention from the perilous state of affairs in Iraq and the need to change course to begin redeploying U.S. combat forces.
Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future about this or any other matter of importance to you.
If you have access to the Internet, I encourage you to frequently visit my web site,
http://casey.senate.gov. In the months ahead, I will continue to develop the site in order to allow you to stay up-to-date on my work in Washington. If you wish to e-mail me, you can do so on the web site.
Sincerely,
Bob Casey
United States Senator
And mine, fired right back to him. I have to say this has done absolutely nothing to restore my faith in my elected official, which has been SEVERELY tested by a string of votes that were, well, not exactly what I was hoping for...
I appreciate your response, sir, but I must point out a flaw in your argument. The real disappointment in all of this is that there is ample proof that General Petraeus did indeed report selected statistics and intepretations of the intelligence findings. (Much like Colin Powell did in the run-up to the war, General Petraeus served as nothing more than a mouthpiece of the Bush Administration in providing a rosy, but misleading, picture of the progress of the war.)
Even more disappointing is that so many Senators (you included, I"m afraid), allowed yourselves to be sidetracked by the feigned shock exhibited by the Republicans. Rather than putting hard questions to the General, you ended up wasting time trying to legislate free speech. Disgraceful, in the eyes of many Americans, such as myself, who believe in the First Amendment. The legislation about MoveOn.org should never have reached the floor of the Senate. It should have been laughed at and scorned, and then attention should have been focused on why Petraeus wasn't telling us the whole truth.
See, MoveOn.org was right. The Bush Administration DID cook the books. And Petraeus betrayed his country by not standing up for what was right...
I only wish I could say more...