Behind the Hard-Left Smear Campaigns

Noel Sheppard has an interesting explication of the instititutional foundations of the hard-left's smear campaigns against Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly (via Memeorandum):

Last week, two of the leading conservatives in the media, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, were dishonestly and unprofessionally attacked by press outlets that cherry-picked out of context remarks from lengthy radio broadcasts in order to vilify outspoken personalities whose opinions they don’t agree with.

Unfortunately, as folks around the country saw this play out on their television sets and newspapers, few were at all familiar with the organization behind the smear campaigns, or that this same group started the firestorm which ended with radio host Don Imus being terminated by NBC and CBS in April.

Maybe more importantly, even fewer citizens are aware that this organization is linked directly to Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as billionaire leftist George Soros.

For some background, John Perazzo wrote a column for FrontPage Magazine in July entitled “Media Matters: Hillary’s Lap Dogs,” that should be must-reading for all citizens interested in who's targeting America’s leading conservative personalities...

The Perazzo column cited by Sheppard dissects Media Matters, the online outfit at work this week trying to get a little payback against conservatives for their powerful outrage against MoveOn's Petraeus attack.

Michelle Malkin sums up the need for payback like this:

It’s about the MoveOn.org Democrats trying to save face in the aftermath of the disastrous “General Betray Us” smear. They want their own moment of righteous (or rather, lefteous) indignation, their own empty proof that they really, really, really do support the troops. They want to shift attention away from MoveOn.org, its bully tactics, and its thug brethren at Media Matters. They are making a pathetic attempt to equate the “Betray Us” attack - which was deliberately timed for publication and maximum p.r. damage to our military command when the world was watching our top general in Iraq testifying in Congress - with a radio talk show host’s ruminations about anti-war soldiers who have faked their military records/history.

Bottom-of-the-barrel desperation.

My own post on the hard-left's phony "phishing" campaign against Limbaugh is here. The lefties are desperate alright, and dumb too!

Blog Watch: Glenn Greenwald

This week's "Blog Watch" entry dissects and exposes Glenn Greenwald, a far-left blogger who's actually one of the more interesting Bush-bashers among those of the radical blogosphere.

I say he's interesting because it's hard not to notice Greenwald's strenuous effort to demonstrate scholarly expertise in international politics, found for example in his constant vitriolic barrages against the administration's Iraq policy, and his righteous fulminations against the coterie of Washington's allegedly evil neocons. Unfortunately, for Greenwald, the more he spews against the administration and its supporters, the more of a left-wing lunatic he appears.

Case in point: Greenwald makes himself an easy target for ridicule with his recent attack on the apparently despicable "Kagan-Kristol" neocon foreign policy cabal.

Greenwald takes issue with the neoconservative foreign policy agenda of Fred and Robert Kagan and William Kristol (and by extension Donald Kagan, Fred and Robert's father, and Kimberly Kagan, Fred's wife). Greenwald excoriates this "Kagan-Kristol" cabal as promoting "endless wars" from the safe confines of their think tank offices. Greenwald lets loose on Fred Kagan for his criticism of the Webb amendment, the recent failed backdoor Senate attempt to weaken the military and force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. Here's Greenwald on the Kagans, with reference to the Webb proposal, attacking their "illegitimate" armchair strategic advocacy:

None has any military service. They have no need for the troop relief provided by the Webb bill (which Fred opposes) because they are already all sitting at home.

Fred Kagan yesterday went to National Review - home to countless tough guy warriors like him who fight nothing - to argue against Senator Webb's bill. There is no need to give our troops more time away from the battlefield....

If troops want more time at home, Kagan says, there is an easy way to achieve that: "win the war we're fighting." Of course, that would not even work, because Kagan and his friends at the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute have many more wars planned beyond Iraq for other families' sons and daughters to fight. For that reason, Kagan actually had the audacity several months ago to type this:

The president must issue a personal call for young Americans to volunteer to fight in the decisive conflict of this generation.

That's the history of our country for the last six years at least. The Fred Kagans and his dad and his brother and his wife and his best friend Bill Kristol sit back casually demanding more wars, demanding that our troops be denied any relief, demanding that the President call for other families to volunteer to fight in their wars -- all "as an intellectual or emotional exercise," as Webb put it.

That's all revolting enough... But it is worth forcing oneself to observe it, as unpleasant as it might be, because within this ugly dynamic lies much of the explanation for what has happened to our country since the 9/11 attack, and the personality type that continues to drive it today.

At base, Greenwald's criticism of Kagan-Kristol's war advocacy is nothing more than a rank "chicken hawk" attack, the same type of adolescent, idiotic slur mounted by the most diehard antiwar activists of the unhinged left (see here and here).

Note further though Greenwald's phrasing: Neoconservative foreign policy advocacy is the foundation of the "ugly dynamic" of the administration's "warmongering" of the last six years.

Such language provides a nice glimpse into Greenwald venal antiwar stance. In a recent post, "The Rigid Pro-War Ideology of the Foreign Policy Community," Greenwald takes on some of the country's top experts on international relations, particularly those of the think tank variety. He accuses them of a uniform program of unrelenting war advocacy, a trait obviously responsible for the "ugly dynamic" in America's international policy since 9/11. Check this out:

The Foreign Policy Community - a term which excludes those in primarily academic positions - is not some apolitical pool of dispassionate experts examining objective evidence and engaging in academic debates. Rather, it is a highly ideological and politicized establishment, and its dominant bipartisan ideology is defined by extreme hawkishness, the casual use of military force as a foreign policy tool, the belief that war is justified not only in self-defense but for any "good result," and most of all, the view that the U.S. is inherently good and therefore ought to rule the world through superior military force.

It's worth reading Greenwald's post in full, but his key point is that America's foreign policy elite forms a monolithic pro-war machine intent to take over the world in some Trotskyite mission of endless conquest, rape, pillage, and imperial plunder. Greenwald's entry is just one attack in a flurry of salvos launched by top antiwar bloggers. But for all of Greenwald's seemingly firm foreign policy acumen, his analysis is deeply flawed by its wholesale generalizations and ferocious enemy-baiting. International relations expert Daniel Drezner, a key participant in this exchange, took exception to Greenwald's wild exaggerations:

Greenwald is conflating an awful lot of disparate but "mainstream" views within his definition of the "foreign policy community." There is a big difference between not taking force off the table as a policy option and vigorously advocating its use. As I said in my previous post, there are vigorous debates about what constitutes a "vital national interest" Greenwald himself acknowledges that force should be an option when other countries "directly threaten your national security" or harbor terrorist groups that will do the same. How does one define direct threats to national security? For the United States, would civil war in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan qualify? Should the use of force be categorically rejected in both cases? Does Iran's links to the Khobar Towers bombing justify the use of force against Teheran, as per Greenwald's criteria?

Read the full post. Drezner cuts to a real problem in Greenwald's writing, which is that Greenwald is so intent to delegitimize the war and its backers that he can't parse out real differences of opinion among foreign policy experts, and he fails to recognize the significant shift in opinion that has taken place on Iraq among the nation's policymaking elite. (Drezner notes, further, the flaws in Greenwald's generalizations by mentioning that Brent Scowcroft, who's among the elite of the foreign policy elite, firmly opposed the Iraq war from the beginning.)

Check out as well Greenwald's recent defense of MoveOn.org's attack on General David Petraeus, captured in Greenwald's denuciation of Brit Hume of FOX News, who hosted a Petraeus broadcast following the general's congressional testimony:

A country with a functioning political press would never pretend that the pro-war, Bush-worshipping Hume could conduct an actual interview with Petraeus, let alone be the only journalist allowed to do so. And a government subject even to minimal levels of accountability would be too embarrassed, or at least deterred, from decreeing that its top general, burdened by a dubious record and making highly precarious claims about an ongoing war, would sit for a television interview with only one "journalist," and that journalist would be Brit Hume.

Notice first the allusions to the Bush administration's dismantling of the rule of law (a common delegitimization technique of the anti-American crowd). But more importantly, see how Greenwald piles on MoveOn's attack campaign to undermine Petraeus, and by implication the war. The MoveOn debacle has been a disaster for the hard-left, and Greenwald's ravings position him far outside of mainstream, intelligent discourse on the future direction of American military policy.

In sum, Greenwald on foreign policy - despite his bookish pretensions - is no better than any other low-level, hate-addled anti-Bush blogger. His work simply feeds the endless appetite for anti-administration fodder among the tasteless surrender-crowd hammering the Democratic Party for its alleged pro-war spinelessness. It's this very pseudo-intellectualism that makes Greenwald worth monitoring. He's got a quick wit, and an even quicker keyboard, pumping out his nasty stuff. Antiwar types digest his swill whole, but the rest of us can see through the balony for what it is: An unexpurgated campaign of antiwar radicalism and anti-Americanism.

Don't believe this guy for a minute.

For more on Greenwald, check his YouTube attacking Washington's prowar "establishment":

See also Greenwald's current post attacking FOX News for its alleged hypocrisy (via Memeorandum).

See also the previous entries from Blog Watch: The Blue Voice, Firedoglake.

Going Phishing: Limbaugh and "Phony Soldiers"

The hard-left's attempt to tar Rush Limbaugh for his intemperate remark about "phony soldiers" is a scam. It's not much different from "phishing," which savvy web users know is the act of falsely claiming to be an real business in an attempt to trick the user into revealing personal data that will be used for identity theft.

After the MoveOn debacle, lefties are just itching for political payback, and they've seized on the Limbaugh story like a junky pumping up his last spoon of smack. Yet, while Limbaugh's comments were ill-considered, what was said has been taken out of context: The remarks were off-color statements during a broadcast, in contrast to MoveOn's high-profile smear against the highly decorated four-star commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Karen Tumulty at Swampland provides a quote that captures the hard-left's outrage against Limbaugh:

Any American who risks his or her life to defend us has earned the respect and gratitude of every American citizen, irrespective of their views on this war. If Mr. Limbaugh made the remark he is reported to have made, it reflects very poorly on him and not the objects of his offensive comment. I expect most Americans, whatever their political views, will have the same reaction. He would be well advised to retract it and apologize.

I agree, but Limbaugh's comments were more particular than has been portrayed. Be sure to see the whole transcript. Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" remark was predicated on the actions of guys like Jesse MacBeth, an antiwar hero who invented stories of American atrocities in Iraq.

Yet from the left blogosphere's attacks one would think Limbaugh impugned each and every member of the military who's had reservations about the war, which is not true.

Jules Crittenden puts things in perpective, noting that Limbaugh's a blowhard, and his comments were dumb:

Remind me not to vote for him for president. Not because he said something stupid and offensive, but because he’s a professional blowhard....

Anyway, “phony soldiers” was a stupid and offensive thing to say about people who are doing their duty and could be killed or maimed whether they agree with what they’ve been asked to do or not. I’d be more inclined to call them “short-sighted” or “ill-informed” or maybe “disgruntled” soldiers. Beauchamp, now, that guy I’d call a phony soldier, even though he’s serving overseas and could get his head blown off. But that’s because of the sockpuppetry, the lies, the dishonoring of his comrades.

Should Congress condemn Limbaugh? The lefties are congratulating themselves for considering themselves above that, which is actually a way of saying they are PO’d that their Democratic-led Congress voted overwhelmingly to smack the New York Times and MoveOn last week.

A shock jock blurting out something stupid is an order of magnitude or two below one of the nation’s leading newspapers running a full-page ad, a half-price, full of insulting distortions about a wartime commander in the midst of critical hearings. I’d be inclined to think Congress has better things to do than waste its time trying to influence the New York Times or Rush Limbaugh, but seeing what Congress has been wasting it’s time with lately, the NYT vote was an improvement. And got more votes than most of what Congress has been wasting its time with lately. If they do go after Limbaugh for an offhand remark, they’ll have lowered the threshold so far that they won’t be able to not accomplish anything else, they’ll be so busy condemning idiotic and tasteless ads, blurtings, comic sketches, etc.

Crittenden adds a footnote acknowledging the unintentional nature of what Limbaugh said, while still renouncing blanket criticism of U.S. troops who disagree with current policy.

Limbaugh's comments, though poorly conceived, compose the left's current red herring in its efforts to squirm out from under the ignominy of its anything-goes-campaign to end the war. The Democrats, unsurprisingly, are gleefully outraged by the comments.

I don't listen to Limbaugh, and I've never cared for his style of attack broadcasting. I'd be among the first to denounce him if he slandered our troops. Based on the transcipts of his broadcast, that's not the case. The "phony soldiers" incident is a scam - like "phishing" - a trick perpetuated by leftists to get folks to "buy" a new meme, and ultimately to draw attention away from its real smear campaign against the military and supporters of the war.

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Update: From the comments section of a lefty milblog criticizing Limbaugh:

Outstanding response to Rush! That drug-addled fat fuck needs to have his microphone shoved up his ass. You did a pretty good job of doing it, too.

As I noted in the post, Limbaugh's comments were ill-considered. Such nasty ad hominem attacks do nothing to further the discussion.

Update II: Crooks and Liars steps to double-time their Limbaugh smear campaign with a link to the new attack video from Vote Vets:

The more pressure put on Limbaugh the better...Contact your representatives...and let them know you want them to condemn Rush’s disgusting and un-American statements about our troops and veterans.

Contact Crooks and Liars and remind them to read the text of Limbaugh's broadast.

Anti-American Activist to Teach Legal Ethics Class

Lynne Stewart, the radical anti-American activist who was convicted of providing material support to terrorists in 2005, is scheduled to teach a course in legal ethics at Hofstra University. The Federal Review has the story (via Memeorandum):

A disbarred lawyer convicted of aiding terrorists will be teaching at an upcoming law school ethics conference.

Lynne Stewart, who was found guilty of conspiring with terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, will be speaking October 16 at Hofstra Law School's "Legal Ethics: Lawyering on the Edge," in Hempstead, New York.

The speaking engagement comes only a year after Stewart was sentenced to twenty-eight months in prison on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists.

Prosecutors alleged that Stewart had passed on messages to Abdel Rahman's radical Muslim followers, authorizing a resumption of terrorist operations against the Egyptian government.

As a result of the convictions, Stewart was automatically disbarred from practicing law.

Her client, Abdel Rahman, was convicted in 1996 of plots to bomb landmarks around New York City.

Stewart will be speaking at Hofstra Law School's 2007 Legal Ethics Conference, Lawyering at the Edge: Unpopular Clients, Difficult Cases, Zealous Advocates. The conference is scheduled for October 14 to 16, 2007 in the Sidney R. Siben and Walter Siben Moot Courtroom (room 308) of Hofstra Law School.

According to the University's website, the conference will feature dynamic speakers who will weigh in on controversial issues such as prosecutorial abuse, the challenges of representing prisoners at Guantanamo, and attacks on lawyers who represent unpopular clients and causes.

This should be a jawdropper, but no one who follows the alliance of Islamic jihad and contemporary Leninism would be surprised by Hofstra's actions. Certainly some of Hofstra's administration and faculty consider "Lawering on the Edge" a worthy aspiration for future attorneys. In Stewart's case, such lawyering includes advocating violence:

I don't believe in anarchist violence but in directed violence....That would be violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism, sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions and accompanied by popular support.

Stewart's legal career has been directed to aiding and abetting those forces hell-bent on the destruction of the United States. Although Stewart has First Amendment rights to her views, it's still incredibly distasteful for her project to be sponsored by institutions of higher learning. Nevertheless, as her biography shows, she's in high demand at colleges and universities across the country.

Hofstra's invitation to Stewart is just one more example of how much work needs to be done in exposing and combatting the pro-terrorist agenda that's prominent on the radical left.

Also blogging: Jammie Wearing Fool, Michelle Malkin, The Oxford Medievalist, Stop the ACLU, Weasel Zippers.

See also, OpinionJournal.

Ahmadinejad Calls for More Research on Holocaust

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered his highly contested speech at Columbia University today, where he renewed his controversial statements about the Holocaust. The Washington Post has the details:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was greeted with student protests and withering public criticism during a visit to Columbia University Monday in which he defended his government's human rights record, denounced Israel and rejected U.S. efforts to restrict Iran's nuclear program.

Speaking to students and faculty at Columbia a day ahead of his scheduled address to the United Nations General Assembly, the hard-line Iranian president also asserted that his people, including women, "enjoy the highest levels of freedom," and he claimed that homosexuality does not exist in his country.

Before his speech, he came under unusually harsh criticism from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, who condemned what he said was the Ahmadinejad government's expanding crackdown on dissent, its persecution of the B'hai religious minority and homosexuals, its support for the destruction of Israel and its pursuit of a "proxy war" against U.S. forces in Iraq.

"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad from a podium across the stage. He said the Iranian's denial of the Holocaust might fool "the illiterate and ignorant," but that "when you come to a place like this, it makes you quite simply ridiculous." Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust suggested he was either "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Bollinger said.

The university president's caustic comments were met with cheers and sustained applause from the roughly 700 people in the audience, most of them students.

Ahmadinejad called the introductory speech insulting and said Bollinger was misinformed. But he went on to repeat his assertions that the Holocaust should be researched "from different perspectives," and he denounced the punishment in Europe of "a number of academics" who were "questioning certain aspects of it." He also said Palestinians should not be "paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with."

The New York Times quotes Ahmadinejad as saying there is insufficient research on the truth of Nazi Germany and the Jews:

He said that as an academic he questioned whether there was “sufficient research” about what happened after World War II, referring to the Holocaust.

I'm going to read the full transcript of the Ahmadinejad speech later, but from what I see in early reports, his statements confirm the argument I made yesterday. As witnessed today, Ahmadinejad has reaffirmed Iran's denial of the Holocaust, and his speech continues the Iranian regime's campaign to weaken the legitimacy of the Israeli state.

As the Los Angeles Times reported today, Ahmadinejad's resistance to Israel and the United States has built the Iranian regime a growing following among Arabs in countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia:

...Ahmadinejad's intense distrust of the U.S. and hatred of Israel have elevated him to mythical status for the frustrated Arab mechanic, taxi driver or lawyer seeking a pure, forceful message.

The Times article notes further that Arab public opinion holds Iran up with Hezbollah and Hamas as a glorious Middle East underdog, battling larger, insidious Western forces. It's clear among large segments of the Arab street that Iran's well-suited - with its aggressive intentions and growing nuclear capability - to lead a revisionist challenge to Middle East regional order.

Much of the blogosphere is up in arms over Columbia's decision to sponsor an Ahmadinejad lecture. The anger is fully understandable, but in the long run I think the Iranian president's words will provide additional support for a firm stand against Iran's drive to weaken international security.

Further, the left blogosphere's noxious defense of Iran - not to mention the left's continued statements of moral equivalency between Bush administration and the Iranian regime - will further discredit the radical political agenda and ideology in current debates over U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Check Out the Hate Mail

Cinnamon Stillwell provides an intimate look into the minds of hate-addled leftists in a recent post on her hate mail.

Stillwell's a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle who published a breakout piece on post-9/11 conservatism a couple of years back. Her views elicit some nasty attacks. Here's a sample:

You give cover to the illegal bush regime and betray your roots. You are sickening for not calling the Chimpy McHitlerstein corruptocracy what it is and demanding Bush's impeachment. Bush stands against world justice and heads the worst Rogue State in the history of the world. Too bad you are blinded by your love of GW War Criminal. PS-I hope you get fired soon. You just dont fit in to SF. Move to Utah.

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Dear Strawberry STINKwell -- Yet again, you have missed the point completely. You are a facist bitch with nothing intelligent to say. Go directly to South Dakota, where maybe you might find some support of your kind. Don't count on it though. As long as you vomit when you speak, no one will find your message appealing. Go work for the worst newspaper in the country, somewhere other than San Francisco. You are trash. You are filth. Your message doesn't matter at all.

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If you have so much sympathy towards your butcher fake/forged mother country why don't you move to it and leave America for the Americans, you fifth column zionist! Or perhaps you are one of those conservative christian a--? Ha?

Whatever peice of human flesh are you, move to Israel, and stop exploiting America to the advantage of you murderous fellow jews/zionist!

...So be a good girl and leave America today. ok sweetheart.

my warm and remote kisses go to all you f--ing israeli americans (enemy's fifth column).

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The only terrorist at this point is sick people like you, spinning and making leaps of connections that do not exist. While this administration...full of draft dodgers and frat boys...make unprepared war with American teenagers that are too irresponsible to hire in a convienience store. We send out Kids who are less morally prepared then any other generation. These are not kids who go into battle with god in their hearts...they listen to rap about murder and gang rape. Then we keep them in a prelonged state of stress because we do not have enough soldiers to relieve them. The end resault is the murders and rapes of innocent at the hands of US tax hired soldiers.

You are an accessory to murder and rape. I hope you and your family suffer the same fate...I pray for it you sick f--.

Read Stillwell's original article posting these attacks. There's some commonality among the e-mails, for example: (1) We see no attempt to rebut substantive points with logic or fact; and (2) The writers mount vicious ad hominem attacks and slurs, including much rancid anti-Semitism, as well as physical threats against Stillwell, some even callling for her death.

I admire Stillwell's courage and equanimity in writing about this. I receive hate-filled attacks frequently in the comments on my blog. In my most recent entry one commenter denounced my analysis of Iran's nuclear threat with some wicked anti-Semitism:

And what's so bad about the destruction of Israel...After all, your dear Bush just destroyed Iraq, and Sadam didn't even have a concentration camp with 1.7 million innocent starving people living like dogs for the past 40 odd years....

Now, before your numb loyal brains kick into overdrive, and make you send me some hatemail, just stop and think this material over for a minute. That's the least you can do for me, since I just wasted my 5 minutes enlightening you.

Wow, I might even get more of this stuff! Surprise, surprise!

Check the comment in the post: This cowardly commenter stole the URL from Angel at Woman Honor Thyself. These rabid Israel-bashing nihilists rarely have the guts to link to their own whacked-out blogs, and when they do, they'll refuse to defend their allegations of lies, genocide, or whatever's the administration's crime-du-jour.

MoveOn Jumps the Shark

With the exception of those among the hardest of the hard left, MoveOn.org has pretty much jumped the shark after its disastrous attack on General Petraeus.

MoveOn has defended its advertising strategy amid reports that the Democratic Party establishment is uneasy with the group's latest initiatives. This Washington Post story explains:

Many Democratic strategists were privately furious at the group for launching an attack on a member of the military rather than Bush, arguing that it gave Republicans a point on which to attack the Democrats and to rally around the administration's war policy. The displeasure underscores the uneasy alliance between MoveOn and the party. MoveOn, after its rather guerrilla start, has increasingly become part of the Democratic establishment in Washington. It has donated money and lent its Washington director, Thomas Mattzie, to a coalition of liberal groups with major funding from wealthy donors that organizes in an office on K Street to promote opposition to the war.

Obviously the Democrats are hesitant to lose support among the liberal elite, like those in the Hollywood movie establishment, as this Los Angeles Times story indicates:

IT looked for a while as if MoveOn.org had become one of Hollywood's favorite liberal advocacy groups, especially for those looking for a place to express their antiwar sentiments without incurring a lot of unfavorable publicity.

Directors and celebrities lined up to help the Internet-based organization formed in 1998 in the wake of President Clinton's impeachment. Oliver Stone directed an antiwar ad for the group, as did Rob Reiner. Moby offered his musical talent, rallying other artists like Michael Stipe and Eddie Vedder to get involved. Director Richard Linklater and writer Aaron Sorkin produced a series of anti-Bush ads in the run-up to the 2004 election. Producer Robert Greenwald and actor Mike Farrell organized celebrities on behalf of the group before the war even started.

But last week when MoveOn ignited controversy by issuing an ad attacking Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the American troops in Iraq, entertainment industry politicos began to wonder if the group had gone too far and in fact become a liability for the largely Democratic Hollywood crowd.

"Most people saw it as a mistake that really hurt progressive candidates," said one Hollywood insider, who asked not to be named because he continues to be involved in fundraising efforts. "We just handed the Republicans a gift. It's like MoveOn has become tone-deaf. I think people will be more cautious and careful about what they do with MoveOn in the future."

Survival instinct is hard-wired in this town. You can push the message, but not at the expense of losing the audience. Plus, few want to be seen as wild-eyed moonbats. It's not a good career move. (Who can forget the footage of Jane Fonda cavorting with the enemy in Vietnam?)

MoveOn's debacle is turning out to be the gift that keeps on giving! Amid the controversy a harsh spotlight is being focused on George Soros, MoveOn's major money backer, and the master proponent of the hard-left agenda (via Memeorandum).

See also William Kristol's analysis of the emerging political stakes in the MoveOn aftermath, and especially his discussion of Hillary Clinton, who, in "Kerry-esque" fashion, "voted for General Petraeus before voting against him."

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Update: For some novel lefty spin on the MoveOn disaster, check out Matthew Yglesias, who argues the whole thing was a "meaningless sideshow" meant to distract attention away from the administration's "perpetual war" (plus more commentary on the issue at Memeorandum).

Blog Watch: Firedoglake

This "Blog Watch" entry examines Firedoglake, the hard-left attack platform of Jane Hamsher and her venomous anti-Bush cadres.

Hamsher's well known among the antiwar blogocracy, and her tactics have frequently raised controversy. As her Wikipedia entry indicates, Hamsher's support of Ned Lamont in his run against Joseph Lieberman in 2006 erupted into a nasty affair when Firedoglake ran a photoshopped image of Lieberman in blackface. Hamsher later faked an "apology" after the Lamont campaign rebuked her, while continuing her attacks on Lieberman, and denouncing his "race-baiting" and "Rovian" tactics.

Hamsher also gained notoriety for her vile slurs against National Review's Kate O'Beirne, whom she called "a dangerous bitch," a "foaming fascist," and announced that the "bitch is dead meat."

With this introduction readers surely have a strong clue to the kind of noxious effluents that drain off the page at Firedoglake. I've only recently become truly familiar with Firedoglake's nasty repertoire, as I've stepped up my campaign this last few months of dissecting and rebutting the left blogosphere's anti-Americanism and Bush-bashing.

But let me continue the discussion with "T-Rex," FDL's "late-night" diarist. Recall in recent posts (here and here) I took issue with T-Rex's unhinged attacks on Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution (O'Hanlon's been skeptical of Iraq progress, but his recent optimistic report was attacked relentlessly by antiwar contingents).

T-Rex spouts a particularly offensive brand of Bush-loathing. He hates not just the administration's policies, by the president himself. In one recent post, T-Rex compared Bush to Britney Spears, saying that the president and the fading pop star shared much in common, arguing that both of their careers were grinding to a halt:

Britney and the Bush Administration seem to be continuing their tandem downward spirals, what with Bush’s parade of embarrassing gaffes at the APEC summit, clearly not knowing where he was or what he was doing there...Then we got to the Petraeus/Crocker product roll-out today and not only was the hearing derailed by the failure of Petraeus’s backing track (No lip-synching for you, General!), but Petraeus’s lukewarm stew of cooked data and vague fist-wavings at Iran was probably as much of a disappointment to the one third of America and the world who still support the war as Britney’s spectacular failure to deliver at the VMA’s last night was to her fans....

What we saw on TV today was the faltering last gasp effort of President Train-wreck and his minions to prove to the world that they’ve Still Got It, that all it takes is a few kajillion dollars and some minor cosmetic tweaking and they’re the same lean, mean media-storming machine that “won” the elections of 2000 and 2004.

The real problem here of course is that neither the Perfect Britney nor President Mission Accomplished were ever all that good to begin with....

Both of these specimens of jumped-up trailer-trash are creatures whose fortunes were made entirely by PR. Marketing is all that BushCo knows how to do effectively, same with the team of industry professionals who used to handle Britney.

Notice here T-Rex's reference to Bush's "stolen" elections, which is just imbecile fodder for the Bush-bashing hordes (investigations into the 2000 Florida recount found Bush winning in most vote-counting scenarios, and even John Kerry conceded Ohio's voting in 2004 as too close an outcome to contest).

But what's obnoxious to me is T-Rex's mindless ad hominem "trailer trash" attacks on the president. This is just ugly partisan demonization that serves no purpose in political debate. Even Britney (who needs to grow up) doesn't deserve such attacks.

Such tripe is routine at Firedoglake. Scarecrow - one more of Hamsher's henchmen - routinely spouts Marxist-Leninist agitprop, for example, in this post denouncing the "Bush/Cheney regime's war against Iran." (But see also Scarecrow's recent entry positing moral equivalence between administration policies and Palestinian terrorists, Hamas).

This brings us back to Hamsher herself. In the past week - amid all the controversy over MoveOn.org's vicious attack against General David Petraeus - Hamsher has not only fully endorsed MoveOn's slur of the four-star commander (praising Hillary Clinton for essentially doing the same), but she's also repeatedly attacked those Democrats who voted against the Webb amendment, the backdoor Senate bill to weaken the military and force a precipitous withdrawal.

There's no need to go on with more examples and more links. While there's some variation in style, all Firedoglake diarists display a rabid hatred of the administration, the military, and traditional American values.

What's amazing to me is that Firedoglake - like the disastrous Daily Kos - mounts its unending attacks against the administration, Iraq, the military, and anything even remotely associated with red-state principles, as though it represents the heart and soul of the Democratic Party and contemporary liberalism. In the comment thread to a post by FDL's Christy Hardin Smith, one commenter argued that FDL's foaming Bush-bashing antiwar types represent the new center of American politics (this is the same comment thread in which one of the visitors came within a hair's breath of advocating death to conservatives, arguing they "don’t even deserve to consume oxygen").

Whether marked by narcissism, megalomania, or just plain stupidity (true Kos-style pathologies), Firedoglake is bad news for Americans committed to justice and rationalism, and especially for those who want to see the United States prevail in Iraq. I have yet to adopt a rating system for evaluating blogs dissected in this series (although a rating-scale was suggested by "Duoist," one of my occassional readers), I would rank Firedoglake among the most vile blogs in the left-wing blogosphere (about a "9" on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Stalinist totalitarianism).

For more on Firedoglake - like its ad comparing President Bush to Adoph Hitler - check out the YouTube below, which features Sean Hannity exposing the vicious partisan hatred of Firedoglake and MoveOn.org (radical lefties created this video, so be warned of the sleazy defense of MoveOn and Jane Hamsher in the concluding annotations):

See also the previous entries from Blog Watch: The Blue Voice.

More Hatred From Daily Kos

This Daily Kos post evinces pure, unmitigated hatred of the Bush administration and the U.S. military. There's really no other way to describe it.

The entry is from "lurxst," and it represents one more unsurprising sample of America-bashing nihilism from those of the Kos crowd:

I Don't Support the Troops..oops, there, I said it...

This has been digging at me for, oh, about 4 years now. I have been hesitant to express this thought, in comments sections and in discussion with other people about the Iraq quagmire for fear of, I don't know, being called mean. Or, un-American. Or something.

Supporting the troops essentially means supporting the illegal war. It seems that us anti-war types have been doing all sorts of mental and philisophical gymnastics to try and work around this. What has emerged is a sort of low impact, mealy-mouthed common wisdom that is palatable to everyone but is ultimately going to allow us to stay in Iraq for years to come....

Until we have another draft, this is a volunteer armed services. I am not even beginning to count the numerous mercenaries that are involved in the occupation. You signed up, you get to go to the desert and risk being shot at by brown skinned people who don't believe the lies you've been told. A war of aggression is immoral, period. If you believe in God, you can damned well be sure you are going to hell for your participation in it. The only troop I support is the man or woman who refuses to be deployed so that they can make the middle east accessible to profiteers who don't give a flying F about morality or democracy. Or a soldier's life.

When Sunni tribes got paid off enough to stop shooting at GIs and instead shoot at Al-Qaeda (in reality themselves) it is funny how they suddenly became Freedom Fighters. During WWII, French resistance fighters were also called terrorists and insurgents by their German occupiers. Can an anti-war proponent look at these Iraqi resistance fighters with the same admiration, even though they worship differently than us and when they eventually win are likely to install a distasteful (to Americans) theocratic tinged state. Can a person who doesn't believe in violence support that people's right to govern themselves, perhaps violently.

I am sorry but supporting the troops means supporting this illegal war.

Notice the de rigueur comparison (only mildly veiled) between the Bush administration and Nazi Germany.

Kos diarists' rants are getting more and more unhinged (and I only catch these lunacies when they're forwarded around the conservative blogosphere).

Recall here as well that I've noted Markos Moulitsas' own narcissism and megalomania, with reference to his regular outbursts claiming that "his movement" represents the true soul of the Democratic Party.

I know Kos and his underlings are deadly wrong about this war and our country. As we learned in recent polling data, public opinion is improving on the war, and with good campaigning, the GOP can come in strong in next year's elections. Still, it's hard to deny that the Democrats are looking good heading into 2008. This is all the more reason to expose and resist all the nihilist garbage that Daily Kos spits out.

Hat tip: Gold-Plated Witch and Jules Crittenden.

Straight Talk on International ANSWER

In a recent post I argued that:

Code Pink protesters and members of International ANSWER cheer a U.S. defeat because they hate everything for which the United States stands. If their antiwar campaign were to succeed in forcing a hasty U.S. exit from Iraq, these groups would be the first in line to storm the barricades against a U.S. government under seige by the forces of global anarchy and nihilism.

In the comments to that post a few visitors disagreed with my argument, suggesting that the United States faces little danger "from fringe groups such as these," and that ANSWER cadres are "boogiemen made of straw."

In response, I'd note that I've never said that the American democracy was about to be toppled by the hardline antiwar left. I have argued, however, that various strains of the international antiwar movement have formed strategic alliances with Islamic organizations with ties to such groups as Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood (see this post and its sources, here and here). Such groups are the sworn enemies of the United States, and there is no doubt whatsoever that their ultimate aim is the total destruction of the country.

Now, in the context of this unholy alliance of America's most implacable enemies, consider the recent statement from International ANSWER activist Adam Kokesh.

As reported in this piece on the "9/11 truthers" at the Weekly Standard, the 9/11 deniers have recently joined together with hardline antiwar organizations to protest the Bush administration's Iraq policies. Particularly, the article reports that the groups came together last week at a Washington, D.C., protest rally on the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Attending the demonstration was Kokesh, an Iraq war veteran who has emerged as a major figure in the most recent round of antiwar activism. Kokesh was recently arrested for posting International ANSWER banners advertising the September 15 protest marches. According to the Weekly Standard, Kokesh was denouncing the administration's "commitment to attacking governments that sponsor terrorism," and he noted that with the current troop deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, "It's too bad [the military is] stretched too thin to strike America."

Now, while International ANSWER is not an armed insurrectionary movement, statements such as Kokesh's arguing for a "strike" against America are troubling. International ANSWER is the premier Marxist-Leninist organization among the American antiwar left. Here's what Byron York of the National Review had to say about the group in February 2003:

...International ANSWER... is an outgrowth of another group called the International Action Center, a San Francisco-based organization that showcases the work of Ramsey Clark, the Johnson administration attorney general who has specialized in anti-American causes. Both ANSWER and the International Action Center are closely allied with a small but energetic Marxist-Leninist organization known as the Workers World Party, which in its turbulent history has supported the Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Chinese government's crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Today, the WWP devotes much of its energy to supporting the regimes in Iraq and North Korea...

York argues that ANSWER is often considered much too radical for many mom-and-pop war opponents. Yet both York and the Economist article cited above note that ANSWER and its alliance partners have gained credibility among peace activists with their rabid denunciations of the Bush administration. In Britain, anti-American protests organized by the hard-left Socialist Workers' Party and pro-terror Islamic groups have been attended by upwards of a million people.

Reasonable people can debate the significance of all of these activities, this antiar radicalism, group opposition to the war, and the anti-Americanism. However, I'm the kind of person who takes people at their word. If Kokesh laments that the U.S. military is stretched too thin to mount a strike against the country, who knows? There's always Hezbollah and its Iranian backers, who at some point may have devastating WMD capabilities. I would not put Kokesh - in all his hatred - past striking up a relationship with such terrorist forces. In addition, young little peaceniks around the country are currenty being indoctrinated by a multifaceted cultural and educational movement of anti-Americanism and Bush-bashing, and their growing hatred of America is increasingly bolstered by the anti-miltary attacks of mainstream leftist interest groups such as MoveOn.org. To many of these people, the United States is an unmitigated evil, and revolution awaits.

So, lefty commenters here can dismiss my writings and concerns as the ill-considered rants of an unanchored neocon. Be that as it may. I will continue to dissect and expose the statements and utterances of the radical left for what they are - unveiled threats against this country - and I will continue my attampts here to shake loose the sleepy complacency common among many Americans on these dangers, which at some point may constitute the makings of a national death wish.

The Flying Nut: Sally Field On War and Peace

According to Sally Field, "If mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamned wars..." Field's intemperate peacenik rant at the Emmys is here:

Michelle Malkin responds, arguing that mothers like Field put their kids in danger when they "shun fights and coddle bullies instead of disciplining them."

Here's more:

Motherhood and peacemaking are not synonymous. Motherhood requires ferocity, the will and resolve to protect one’s own children at all costs, and a lifelong commitment to sacrifice for a family’s betterment and survival. Conflict avoidance is incompatible with good mothering.

On the playground of life, Sally Field is the mom who looks the other way when the brat on the elementary-school slide pushes your son to the ground or throws dirt in your daughter’s face.

She’s the mom who holds her tongue at the mall when thugs spew profanities and make crude gestures in front of her brood. She’s the mom who tells her child never to point out when a teacher gets her facts wrong.

She’s the mom who buys her teenager beer, condoms, and a hotel room on prom night, because she’d rather give in than assert her parental authority and do battle.

She’s the mom whose minivan sports insipid bumper stickers preaching non-intervention at all costs: “Peace is patriotic.” “War is not the answer.” “It Will Be a Great Day When Our Schools Get All the Money They Need and the Air Force Has to Hold a Bake Sale to Buy a Bomber.”

Hollywood can afford to indulge Sally Field’s inarticulate naivete. America cannot. And the very moms that Sally Field claims to speak for know it.

Read the whole thing. (Malkin notes that not all mothers think with their wombs instead of the brains. I'm sure Margaret Thatcher would agree.)

Turns Out That Summer Really Didn't Make a Difference

Cross-posted from The Oxford Medievalist:

I find it highly amusing that Senate Democrats, whilst incessantly deriding the surge as the same old failed strategy and urging a "change of course" in Iraq, can't seem to shake their own failed strategy in Congress. Instead of seeking compromise in the wake of General Petraeus', and Ambassador Crocker's, testimonies, the Politico reports that Senate Democrats will continue their failed strategy of pushing for, among other things that won't pass, a hard timetable for withdrawal. The Democrats' ability to compromise was always predicated on their ability to peel wavering Republicans to their side, and now that seems unlikely given that GOP leaders are committed to giving General Petraeus until March to continue the surge. It's no surprise, then, that the Democratic agenda is spearheaded by the ever-courageous Blind Harry, who sounds positively childish:

"We haven't found much movement with the Republicans. They seem to be sticking with the president," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday. "I think they've decided they definitely want this to be the Republican Senate's war, not just Bush's [war]. They're jealous. They don't want him to have it as only his war."

Similarly shocking is Senator Carl Levin's (D-Mich.) attempt to portray the Democrats' stand as a matter of principle, as opposed to simply a matter of what MoveOn.org wants:

"We want to vote on something we believe in before we move on," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "There could be people who vote for this who didn't before."

Meanwhile, as the Democrats plan for more symbolic gestures to their anti-war base, that base is getting rather restless. The frustration has some anti-war activists, indeed has some Democrats, wondering aloud if the anti-war base should turn its sights on Democratic members of Congress who are not more aggressively challenging the GOP. Tom Matzzie, head of the anti-war coalition Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), thought by now that the offensive his coalition was about to launch against Republicans at the start of the summer was

"going to smash their heads against their base and flush them down the toilet,” Matzzie said in April.

Yet here we are almost six months later and progress continues to be made in Iraq and the Democrats have nothing to offer other than "more of the same."

Sound familiar?

Cross-posted from The Oxford Medievalist.

The Big Picture on Iraq Antiwar Protests

This last weekend saw large demonstrations in Washington against the war in Iraq. The New York Times has the story (via Memeorandum):

A rally on Saturday to protest the war in Iraq, which began with a peaceful march of several thousand people to the Capitol, ended with dozens of arrests in a raucous demonstration that evoked the angry spirit of the Vietnam era protests of more than three decades ago.

The police, including some officers dressed in riot gear, tried to halt demonstrators as they sought to climb over a low wall near the Capitol after a march that had begun near the White House in a festive atmosphere.

The protest grew tense as the chanting, placard-carrying demonstrators gathered near the Capitol for a planned “die-in.” Officers struggled to keep demonstrators from breaking through their ranks and began arresting those who tried.

But check this out:

Before the antiwar marchers arrived, there was a brief physical altercation between some members of the antiwar group Code Pink and some of the demonstrators who said they were there to support the troops. The police moved in to break up the scuffle. As the antiwar demonstrators moved along Pennsylvania Avenue, the two sides continued to trade chants and sometimes heated messages, but lines of police officers intervened to keep the opposing sides apart.

“What troubles me, the thing that is so dismaying, is they don’t realize the big picture,” said John Aldins, 54, who came from Media, Pa., with his wife, Karen, and daughter, Rachel, to show their support for the troops. The Aldins have three other children serving in the military. Rachel Aldins will join the Army in the fall to serve as a nurse.

“It’s not just Iraq, it’s the whole Middle East,” Mr. Aldins said. “It’s not a red, blue or pink issue. It’s an all-of-us issue.”

The protests came during a week in which Iraq dominated the attention of the White House and Congress. In a speech on Thursday, President Bush sought support for a substantial military presence in Iraq and a gradual troop reduction.

Members of the Answer Coalition, the umbrella organization of activist groups behind the demonstration, are demanding an immediate troop withdrawal. Some of the protesters called for Mr. Bush’s impeachment. Speakers at the rally included familiar political and antiwar activists, among them Cindy Sheehan, Ralph Nader and Ramsey Clark.

Brian Becker, a national coordinator for the coalition, said in a statement: “What Bush really intends is to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for years or decades to come. He plans to move forward with a policy that will continue to kill thousands of U.S. service members and hundreds of the thousands of Iraqis.”

Several marchers said they were demonstrating against what they called the Bush administration’s false assertions about Iraq. Kim Druist, 39, a nurse from Plainsboro, N.J., who wore a camouflage shirt to represent solidarity with American troops, said she intended to be arrested to protest the testimony by Gen. David H. Petraeus earlier in the week in which he said there had been progress in Iraq. Ms. Druist referred the statement to as propaganda.

The comments by war supporter John Aldin deserve attention and elaboration:

The big picture in Iraq is that the U.S. forces are fighting magnificantly to bring liberty to a nation that had lived under tyranny for decades. Saddam's threat to regional security is gone. Beyond Iraq, though, the battle looms large, with the stakes growing to incude the future stability of the entire region. Iran and its proxies in Lebanon and Palestine seek regional domination. The forces of Islamic terror in Iraq and elsewhere want a U.S. defeat to consolidate in Iraq a homebase of nihilist operations for the worldwide jihad.

Code Pink protesters and members of International ANSWER cheer a U.S. defeat because they hate everything for which the United States stands. If their antiwar campaign were to succeed in forcing a hasty U.S. exit from Iraq, these groups would be the first in line to storm the barricades against a U.S. government under seige by the forces of global anarchy and nihilism.

The big picture is that we are in a fight to the death, and our enemies are not only on the fields of Afghanistan and Iraq, but on the streets at home as well. I do not see in the radicals' civil disobedience any resemblance to the civil rights marches of Martin Luther King. Instead, I see Leninist throngs that would impose a reign of totalitarianism terror should they ascend to power.

This is a challenge for the survival of good and right, internationally and domestically. Democracies do perish. The death of the U.S. won't be soon enough for the antiwar groups in Washington this last weekend.

Also blogging the demonstrations: Michelle Malkin, Don Surber, and Sister Toldjah (more links via Memeorandum).

See also Spree's latest on Air Force Colonel Gregory S. Hollister, who plans a lawsuit against MoveOn.org.

Antiwar Protesters Will Mount Civil Disobedience

This weekend's big antiwar protests are about to get underway, and International ANSWER, the hardline Marxist-Lenininst group, plans a campaign of "civil disobedience" to shut down the "war machine":

A week of events meant to crank up a national demonstration against the war in Iraq is set to begin Saturday, with a 1,000-person "die-in" at the U.S. Capitol led by current and former American troops and accompanied by taps and a mock 21-gun salute.

The die-in will be the culmination of a march and rally. Organizers hope the event will spur people in the antiwar movement to move from protesting to performing acts of civil disobedience that "get in the way of the war machine," said Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, at a news conference yesterday at the National Press Club.

A counter-demonstration is planned by A Gathering of Eagles (I blogged twice recently on pro-war activities planned this month, here and here):

At a news conference Monday, Gathering of Eagles spokesman Kristinn Taylor said the group's purpose is "to not allow this generation of America's servicemen and women to be betrayed on the battlefield and at home, as happened during and after the Vietnam War."

But at the ANSWER news conference yesterday, Carlos Arredondo, whose son Alex was killed in Iraq in 2004, said, "My passport says 'We the people,' and we the people are responsible for stopping this madness." Arredondo held a folded U.S. flag in one hand and his open passport in the other.

Other speakers included antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and Adam Kokesh, co-chairman of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

The antiwar movement "is far from where Bush would like you to think we are, that we are the fringe. They are the fringe. We are the mainstream," said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation, which encourages Muslim civic participation.

War opponents have carried out acts of civil disobedience since the war began, but Becker said the die-in will be different because it was conceived by and will be led by Iraq war veterans and their families.

Be sure to check Michelle Malkin's powerful post denouncing the radicals and their "vandalism, desecration, and cowardice." Malkin reports that antiwar protesters are suspected of desecrating the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial:

Over the weekend, something happened here at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Something destructive. Something dishonorable. Along the foot of the wall, covering a stretch almost two-thirds of the entire monument, an oily substance was spilled on the panels and paving stones that were built to pay tribute to those who gave their lives on the battlefield.

See also Spree at Wake Up America, who has been running regular posts with information on prowar counter-rallies.

The Defining Moment of the Antiwar Faction

Peter Feaver, in yesterday's Boston Globe, compared MoveOn.org's attempt to inpugn General David Petraeus to that of Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy started his downhill slide to self-destruction after Army lawyer Joseph Welch challenged him, saying:

You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

That's exactly what we should be saying to MoveOn.org after the publication of their advertisment attacking Petraeus' credibility:

The MoveOn.org ad is vicious, and would garner comment even if it were merely one more primal scream in the coarse blogosphere debate over Iraq. But it is not an angry e-mail or blog entry. It is a deliberate attack on the senior Army commander, in a major daily newspaper, with the intention of destroying as much of his credibility as possible so that his military advice could be more easily rejected by antiwar members of Congress.

The attack was part of an elaborate effort to undermine public support for the Iraq war, and was foreshadowed by an unnamed Democratic senator who told a reporter, "No one wants to call [Petraeus] a liar on national TV . . . The expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us." The effort is funded by powerful special interests, and has all the trappings of a major political campaign.

Precisely because it is so vicious, so public, and so deliberate, the attack on Petraeus cannot be ignored by either side in the Iraq debate.

Feaver perfectly captures my feelings on MoveOn's underhanded attacks, not to mention the hard left's entire antiwar smear campaign on the Bush administration's surge strategy.

This is the "defining moment of the antiwar faction," notes Feaver.

Let me stress Feaver's key point: It's vital for clear-headed thinkers to rebut these attacks. I will continue to speak out against such despicable smear campaigns, and I urge my readers to pick up attention to these attacks in their work.

Click here for the Washington Post's photo image of MoveOn's New York Times attack ad.

For a printable PDF version of the ad, check this post over at Hoystory.

Antiwar Forces Paint Petraeus as Lying Traitor

The antiwar attack machine is gearing up in full force to discredit this week's testimony of General David Petraeus. Over the weekend congressional Democrats and hardline lefty bloggers sought to dampen the credibility of Petraeus and his highly anticipated report by callling him a liar and a traitor.

Angevin13 over at The Oxford Medievalist reported yesterday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid questioned General Petraeus' honesty. This quote is from ABC News:

This week General David Petraeus will deliver his long-awaited progress report on the surge in Iraq. Faced with mounting reports of the improving security situation in places such as Anbar province, Democrats -who have a vested political interest in seeing a U.S. defeat in Iraq - are trying to attack General Petraeus' honesty.

Angevin notes that a number of previously skeptical war commentators have now reported success on the ground, and adds:

In light of this evidence, questioning Petraeus' credibility, when their own party members' are returning from Iraq and reporting the surge's success, indicates that the Democrats' strategy is bankrupt.

The "Petraeus-as-liar" meme got some steam over at FireDogLake yesterday as well. In a post by "looseheadprop," FDL attacks alleged Republican deceitfulness (with G.W. Bush as the biggest "lying" villain), and warns General Petraeus that he could face charges if his testimony is untruthful:

Lying in this report to Congress would be a very significant thing.

I really hope that the General is spending some time this weekend seriously considering the consequences that could befall him (Oh, and the American people? Oh, and our kids under his command?) if he lies in his report to Congress.

Does he think he is somehow immune from indictment? Does he think his chest full of ribbons entitles him to attempt to perpetrate a fraud upon the Congress and people of the United States?

Not to be outdone, as Pete Hegseth notes, MoveOn.org is calling Petraeus a traitor for his reporting of substantial military gains in Iraq. The Hegesth piece appeared last night, and notes:

Tomorrow--as General David Petraeus provides his Iraq assessment to Congress--the antiwar group MoveOn.org is running a full-page advertisement in the New York Times under the headline: "General Petraeus or General Betray us? Cooking the books for the White House."

Let's be clear: MoveOn.org is suggesting that General Petraeus has 'betrayed' his country. This is disgusting. To attack as a traitor an American general commanding forces in war because his 'on the ground' experience does not align with MoveOn.org's political objectives is utterly shameful. It shows contempt for America's military leadership, as well as for the troops who have confidence in him, as our fellow soldiers in Iraq certainly do.

As I've noted many times on this page, the hard left has become desperate in its attempts to discredit the administration, the military, and any other pro-victory contingents in American politics determined to see our efforts through. Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos has even put up a post telling Petraeus to f--- off.

Isn't that great? Leading antiwar forces have nothing remotely substantive to add to this debate, so they resort to name-calling, allegations of treason, and vulgar profanity. Remember though, we're not talking about fringe groups. Moulitsas himself has proclaimed many times that his movement is the future of the Democratic Party, and Move0n.org has become one of the party's biggest sources of unofficial "issue advertising" attacks.

We need to hear what General Petraeus has to say. There should be no doubts about his honesty, integrity, and determination to do what's best for our nation.