No. Please explain.
The Democrats are a means to an end. The future and well-being of the Democratic Party is not the issue. Pressuring candidates and office holders is not only legitimate, it is a duty of citizenship. Never more so than now.
MoveOn represents the mad-as-hell wing of the public, not the mad-as-hell wing of the Democratic Party. However much those groups may overlap, their interests are not identical. There is no reason for the Democratic Party to feel bound to apologize for MoveOn, and there is not reason why MoveOn should turn a blind eye to a candidates short comings simply because he caucuses correctly.
If MoveOn should evaporate tomorrow, it would be replaced by tomorrow night. It does not lead the anti-war movement, it does not embody that movement, it is one focal point of many. It is convenient that it is already there, but if it were not, somebody else would be.
And if political slander and lies were quantifiable, with a defined metric with exacting standards of measurement, all the years of MoveOn’s existence might be measured in milliCoulters.
I agree that the Dems needn’t apologize for MoveOn and what it does or does not do. This whole business about a political party needing to apologize for a group’s action is just a distraction from the real issues. That includes MoveOn, Daily Kos, Rush Limbaugh, the Swiftboaters or BJ University (gotta love that term).
But here’s the thing… if you cozy up to one of those groups, you are going to be associated with their message. And the other side is going to point that out as loudly as they can. Nothing wrong with that either, if you ask me. Now, “cozy up” is not a very precise term, but I think that the Dems (or at least many of them, including some of the leadership) can be said to have cozied up to MoveOn. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
RTF: On the Kerry thing, even if you only go with the assertion as you read it, it still implies that some of the soldiers over there are dropouts (or whatever negative term you want to use). Even if that’s true, what kind of politician makes a point of bringing that up in public? But Kerry asserted that he was talking specifically about Bush, and I take him at his word on that. Plus, if you listen to the actual speech, in context, it does seem that he is talking about Bush (that line came after several other one-liners aimed at Bush).
In general, I agree, but it was fairly well established that the Swiftboaters were well-entwined with the Bushies/Republican Party. It also seems pretty clear that they were ginned up solely for the 2004 election. If not, they’re keeping a pretty low profile now.
Not that I really want to get into any sort of ya huh/nuh huh about the Swiftboaters now.
How is whether or not a general is misleading Congress a policy question? Surely there is no policy debate over whether we should be getting a full and accurate picture of the situation in Iraq.
It’s true, of course.
So the worst interpretation is that Kerry didn’t slam the troops, but rather simply said something true but impolitic.
OK, I’m willing to take the worst-case interpretations of both Boehner and Kerry. 
OK, then, he’s a Judas.
Under our system of government, ultimate loyalty is to the Constitution and the people, not to the President or Congress. Petraeus has chosen to make himself and the President look good, at the cost of being straight with the people. Yes, it’s a betrayal.
And while it won’t cause Jesus to die again, a lot of Americans *will *die on account of this, just as a lot more Americans have already been killed or wounded because of the ‘surge.’
Betrayal. Sending more young men and women to their deaths because he believes in a policy that the straight facts won’t support at all, but the twisted facts give just the barest sheen of credibility to, so that he won’t have to admit his policy’s failed, and Bush won’t have to admit that his war has been a total loss, a complete waste of American lives.
Betrayal.
Sorry you feel that way. What I saw was that after the attention-grabbing headline, MoveOn published a very passionate, but fundamentally fact-based, rational criticism of Petraeus, backed up by cites to the NY Times, the WaPo, and the AP.
That ain’t Rush territory. It wasn’t how Tailgunner Joe did things either.
Well, it may have been bad politics - I don’t know. But if no one had tried anything, then it would have been all St. David, hallelujah.
They may or may not have done well politically, but at least they tried.
Well, that is a trivial butcher’s bill for a military operation on this scale – occupying a country the size of California for four years and more. Where Boehner is wrong is in assuming that American “victory” there is a thing worth having at any price. We (the people) never needed this war and will never get any good out of it. We would not have got any good out of it, even if the Iraqi people had peacefully and unanimously followed the new elected government from day one.
In a post-hoc summary of the Betray Us ad, the beltway bloviation, and the actual outcome in reality, Glenn Greenwald does a nice job recapping the whole affair. The bottom line - once again the beltway media was completely wrong about the effect of the ad, but does nothing to provide any sort of correction, review or commentary.
In all likelihood, the ad had no effect on people’s opinions, which was correctly predicted by the liberal bloggers I read. However, based simply on the polling numbers before and after, one could even argue that it had a positive effect.
He clearly means ‘investment’ as lives and treasure. The questioner refers to both and the reply makes no distinction.
You’ve simply GOT to be kidding here. Since when is simply effort in the pursuit of a noble end the metric to be judged and not the means someone is willing to employ to achieve that end?
So, I guess in the attempt to stop the war—successfully or not—it would be okay for you to kill american soldiers, or kill Bush, or blow up a transport plane taking soldiers to Iraq, etc? I mean at least you’d be trying, right?
So if I was to opine that General MacArthur was a blowhard son of a bitch, whose incompetence and arrogance led to the betrayal of US troops and leaving them to the tender mercies of the Japanese, I would, according to you, not be supporting the troops?
That’s ridiculous.
I never said character issues were completely off the table, just that criticism of Petraeus would be better were it restricted to policy.
So let’s be clear. If you have specific complaints about General Petraeus’ character, make 'em. I’m all ears.
'Course, then I’d love to hear how such an awful man sailed through confirmation without a single dissenting vote - not a one. Clinton and Obama voted yea. Schumer and Durbin voted yea. Feinstein, Kennedy, Reid, Levin, Biden, Cardin, Mikulski, Casey, Webb, Feingold, Harkin, Klobuchar…well, I’m sure you can see my point.
Whether Petraeus is the right man or wrong man for the job, he had tons of help from Democrats getting it.
I don’t have any particular issues with Petraeus’ character. This is why I haven’t taken out a TV ad attacking his character.
You say it would be better to restrict criticism to his policy, and say his character is open to specific complaints. I never saw the MoveOn ad, but there seem to be two possibilities.
-
It attacked his character, in which case you have the complaint you were looking for.
-
It didn’t attack his character, in which case there isn’t a problem.
Of course, I suppose it might have attacked his character, but not specifically enough for you. In which case I would have thought you could have worded your opposition to it differently.
Anyway - I still find it ridiculous that you find criticizing a commanding officer to be indicative of not supporting the troops. And that is doubly true if there is a suggestion that the commanding officer has bowed to political pressure and placed his troops in increased harm as a result. Would you accept that is a significant character flaw worthy of criticism in a career officer?
And I am totally sure had Democrats in the Senate opposed the appointment, no one whatsoever would have attempted to protray it as politicizing the war (which of course has been totally apolitical since Day One). Why I am sure you would never have added your voice to those attacking the Democrat Senators for refusing to support the troops by having the temerity to question a command determination.
Oh, perhaps I would have. But if they had cause to question, they should have prepared for such opposition and had responses to it. If they have cause now, same thing.
Someone mentioned MacArthur - well, Truman fired him, didn’t he? And while Truman paid a political cost for doing so, he still won that argument. MacArthur stayed fired.
I dunno. Who’s saying that? (Hint: read the rest of the post you pulled that quote from.)
And if you look at even the very statement you quoted, what I said was that effort in pursuit of this particular noble end justifies doing something that may have been bad politics. That’s a wee tad different from suggesting that it would justify mass murder, political assassination, or whatever other craziness you care to throw at the page.
Feeling better now?
That’s interesting. Here’s you @18:
And @34:
I don’t see ‘better’ v. ‘worse’ on the ‘character issue’ issue here. I see ‘you shouldn’t criticize the man’s character’ @34, and ‘you have no need at all to call his character into question’ @18.
Although by post 45, it got back to the ‘you can criticize his character if you want to, but remember that lighting will strike you if you do, because he’s a holy man’ gambit:
So I’m glad you’re changing your tune now:
Even if you call it a ‘clarification.’
Actually, no I can’t, on multiple levels.
-
These are many of the same Senators who didn’t filibuster Alito or the Military Commissions Act, who got buffaloed on the recent FISA amendments, and so forth. Yeah, it’s really impressive that they confirmed a Bush nominee.
-
Someone had to be in charge of running the war in Iraq. Was anyone else going to be any better?
-
There wasn’t a big pile of evidence yet that the ‘surge’ wasn’t working for Petraeus to publicly contradict, because - oh, yeah! - there wasn’t a ‘surge’ yet! So they weren’t voting on the accuracy of the MoveOn charges.
But I guess the Senators should have seen into the future so they could have cited the same evidence against Petraeus’ honesty that MoveOn did.
An argument that’s dependent on time travel isn’t a very strong one. Maybe you ought to try again. Or just give up.
Or maybe you expect us to realize that we should be singing:
Holy, holy, holy
David Petraeus
Early in the morning
Our songs shall rise to thee.
Or some such drivel. Because basically, your argument is boiling down to what it was @45: how dare we criticize the character of a Holy Man such as David Petraeus.
To steal a line from The Killers, “he doesn’t look a bit like Jesus.”
Nice try. You are the one who attempted to separate the act itself from the ends it sought to achieve, thereby washing away any unpleasantness tied to it. You’re deigning to acknowledge that it was also “bad politics” doesn’t get you off the hook. I was showing you the problem with that line of thinking. And the use of hyperbole in the examples I offered is not the same as trying to equate the acts themselves. You would think someone participating on a debate board would know that. But I guess you’d be wrong. If you see now that your doing so was, indeed, wrong-headed, good. That does make me feel better.
You’re the one who apparently can’t read.
With you. You’ll have to excuse me for not caring.
And I was showing you that you imagined the entire problem.
No, it isn’t. It was just you getting overexcited about something that only existed in your imagination.
No, I do know that - what you were getting all exercised about does in fact only exist in your imagination.
Glad to help.
BTW, let me explain about “the end justifies the means.” As you surely understand now, I’m not generally a defender of that sort of rationale. But the objectionable part about the end being used to justify the means is when it’s a deplorable means.
If there’s nothing wrong with the means in the first place, then its connection between a good end is NOT a case of the end justifying the means because the means needs no justifying.
Now if you read post 67, which contains my words that upset you so much, you will notice that most of that post is a justification of the means on its own terms, completely irrespective of ends.
This is what I mean when I say you apparently can’t read. It’s not like any of that was hidden.
This reduced any residual problem with the means to a practical, not a moral, problem: that of political fallout. There is nothing inherently morally wrong with risking adverse political reaction. If it’s a price you’re willing to pay, then pay it; if not, then don’t.
So in this case, “the end justifying the means” was really just a simple cost-benefit ratio, just like you experience anytime you buy a loaf of bread: you want the bread more than you want the money you pay for it, so you buy the loaf. The ‘end’ of obtaining the loaf justifies in a practical sense (for it needs no moral justification) the completely acceptable ‘means’ of handing over cash.
Same thing here.
This implies that I made this accusation of you, and that now you’re trying an “oh yeah, I know you are but…” But I didn’t, which would explain why you didn’t attempt to defend yourself against such a claim. It doesn’t explain, though, why you chose to make this claim out of the blue. Seems like your grasping for something…
No, your words are still there. Here they are again: “They may or may not have done well politically, but at least they tried.” You want to make it a purely political equation. You miss the more important aspect.
I think I can see where you’re having trouble. Let me help you. Most people would consider suggesting that a man who has spent his life serving his country in the military, putting himself in harm’s way, and serving in a such an honorable manner that he is confirmed for his current post unamimously, that such a characterization is absolutely deplorable. But I guess I can’t fault you if you don’t have a handle on how honor might apply. I hope this helps for the future.
I commented on your parting shot. Now if you want to say that your parting shot does not reflect your thoughts, go right ahead. That you misstated your beliefs or typed inaccurately, go ahead. I would hope that would be tha case. Though I am not optimistic.
Your analogy does not work. With the buying of bread and the cost associated with it, the costs are personal, restricted to the person who seeks to gain the benefit of bread. Here, you focus on the political cost, as if that is the important consideration. And that misses the point entirely. Remove any political cost from the equation and the ad was simply deplorable. Not just unwise, or politically risky, be deplorable. It sought to impugn a man by striking at the heart of how he has lived his life: to suggest that a man who has served his country in uniform—with honor—has a traitorous streak. The fact that there might be a political cost in doing so is healthy, a saving grace, of sorts. The fact that you focus on the political aspect of it and not on the disgust of the act itself is exactly the point. It is illuminating. And consistent with what I’ve come to expect from you.
[/QUOTE]