skippy the bush kangaroo: in stark contrast to most of the senate

Thursday, September 20, 2007

in stark contrast to most of the senate

via jane at fdl, matt stoller highlights how most of the dems withered at the sight of a huge scary ad in the new york times, in his interview w/gen. wes clark:

matt stoller: you recently called the moveon ad criticizing petraeus a 'big mistake'. why is it a big mistake?

wes clark: because it distracted attention from focusing on the failures of the policy and let the other side play a game of personal attack again and you know sort of outrage at that. that's a mistake. it distracted us from the dialogue we needed...

ms: so your argument is not that it was inaccurate in any way.

wes clark: no, i'd say it was a mistake tactically. but i also, i know dave petraeus, and he's not gonna say something he thinks is incorrect, he's not gonna lie, but the truth is relative, it's relative to where you sit and to what your responsibilities are. he sees the war in a certain way, he sees the circumstances in a certain way. other people might look at the same situation and not being in his shoes might see it differently. that's what the dialogue is supposed to be all about. i don't think it's accurate to call him someone whose... it's a big mistake tactically…

matt stoller: ok, but david petraeus claims that violence is down, and his report is the outlier. the associated press, the los angeles times, the gao, all say that violence remains high. i don't understand why petraeus should be above criticism for representing information that isn't credible.

wes clark: he shouldn't be above criticism. you should quarrel with the information, don't quarrel with his character…

matt stoller: but why can a sitting senator criticize a general and millions of grassroots activists not do that? that's really what moveon is, it's not like it's an entity.

wes clark: moveon's an organization, and when it does that it distracts from the dialogue that the senator's trying to have. frankly, i think the better course of action is to bring out all the statistics and challenge petraeus directly to explain how he can say that in the face of all these statistics. did we do that? did moveon do that? did they lay out the statistics and say 'petraeus says this, here's the other fact he doesn't tell you, general petraeus come back to us and explain to us.

matt stoller: absolutely they did that. that's what the ad was, was there anything in the ad that was factually inaccurate?

wes clark: what instead came out was the play on his name, and that's all that came out. and that was the mistake. if it was a serious ad, did it ask those serious questions, no one could have objected to it…

matt stoller: so how do the millions of people who feel lied to by general petraeus express themselves? what's the appropriate way to express themselves?

wes clark: send emails, write editorials, call senators, write op-eds, letters to the editors, but make them substantive, serious letters. if you feel like he has lied to you say so, but don't make the pun on his name. show it with facts and let people draw the conclusion. it's inflammatory rhetoric to hurl out accusations of lying, that's a conclusion that has to be drawn by a careful review and examination of the evidence and it has to be used with great circumspection. that kind of reckless language, especially the use of puns and so forth, people don't like it, it doesn't change peoples' minds, it alienates support, and this is a democracy. we've got to convince moderate middle of the road americans to come our way. we won't do it with those kinds of ads.

so, no puns allowed. as we said before, everybody's lucky the guy's name wasn't generaly buckhew.

however, getting back to jane at fdl, she adds an update from rep. pete stark's office:

“i commend moveon for their ad and for speaking truth to power,” said stark. “up is not down, the earth is not flat, and the surge is not working. general petreaus betrayed his own reputation by standing with george bush in opposition to the timely withdrawal of all of our brave men and women from iraq. i thank moveon for their patriotic ad and call on petreaus to help bush end a war the president should have never started.” – california congressman pete stark

let's reward good behavior. why not donate whatever you can to pete stark? Add a message at the bottom of the page thanking rep. stark for standing up for the moveon ad, and be sure to add .07 cents to let everyone know it came from blogtopia, and yes, we coined that phrase!

Labels: democrats, general clark, moveon.org