Bush Obsessed with "Betray Us" MoveOn Ad

Vyan

(990 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Thu Sep-20-07 03:43 PM
Original message

Bush Obsessed with "Betray Us" MoveOn Ad

Taking questions from reporters in the White House press room Thursday morning, President Bush seemed more eager to pile on a week-and-a-half's worth of Republican attacks on a MoveOn.org ad than he was to talk about issues with actual geopolitical impact.

In fact he was so upset by the ad that went into an "extended diatribe" over it at the end of his press conference.

The president called the group's full-page New York Times ad "disgusting," and he accused Democrats of caring more about the feelings of liberal activists than the US military.

Feelings.. nothing more than feelings...

Hey Commander Prez-Guy, can our troops have a side of Body Armor and Health Care to go with this old song and dance? Pretty Puhleeze?

Here's a Short Clip from the Presser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiuRhy4CqzU

Ok, ok - the real clip is here.

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Bush_bashes_Dems_over_MoveOn_ad_0920.html

"I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus but on the U.S. military.

Yet again, no one can say anything about any specific soldier without attacking the "ENTIRE U.S. MILITARY." It's not like they happen to be individuals or anything. What are they a multi-headed hydra joined at the hip or something? The Uni-mind? All is one - One is All. Y'know - like an Army of One!...

uh oh!

And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad," Bush said. "That leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are (more) afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org ... than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal."

He's upset that more Democrats didn't speak out against it? Let's see that ad was criticized by John Kerry, Joe Biden, John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards and of course, Joe Lieberman - but who didn't speak out against it? Oh yeah - Hillary.

So this is just a pre-emptive jab a Hillary? Ok, fine - that just means Republicans are actually afraid of her. Good.

But it's interesting that when the show was on the other stage and you had people accusing someone like say - John Kerry - of being a "traitor" and giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" the President wasn't nearly so upset. Maybe that's because the President was one of the people making the accusation. (ala WaPo)

Appearing in the Rose Garden yesterday with Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, Bush said Kerry's statements about Iraq "can embolden an enemy." After Kerry criticized Allawi's speech to Congress, Vice President Cheney tore into the Democratic nominee, calling him "destructive" to the effort in Iraq and the struggle against terrorism.

As did Orin Hatch.

Democrats are "consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there."

And John Thune speaking about his then Senate rival Tom Daschle.

"His words embolden the enemy." Thune, on NBC's "Meet the Press," declined to disavow a statement by the Republican Party chairman in his state saying Daschle had brought "comfort to America's enemies."

And Dennis Hastert

Asked whether he believed al Qaeda would be more successful under a Kerry presidency, Hastert said: "That's my opinion, yes."

So did anyone on the Republican side of the aisle disavow these remarks? Did anyone at all stand up and say - "this is going too far - it's Disgusting!"? Hm, not so much.

The White House and the Bush campaign said they would neither endorse nor disavow the remarks by Hastert, Armitage and others. "Those statements speak to the great concern many people have about John Kerry's consistent vacillation under political pressure on the most significant issues the nation faces with regard to the war on terror," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan had no quarrel with the remarks. "They are expressing their opinion," he said.

So all these Republicans were just "expressing their opinion", say like the opinion that Senator Max Clelend has now become a member of Al Qeada simply because he voted against the Patriot Act. It's not like the Patriot has been abused a few thousand times or anything.

No one on the Republican side has spoken out about these actual abuses, not just theoretically ones, real ones. But somehow Democrats are deficient if they don't toss MoveOn from the train over "General Betray Us?"

Yeah, It's not like Republicans have ever attacked General Zinni.

MOWBRAY: Discussing the Iraq war with the Washington Post last week, former General Anthony Zinni took the path chosen by so many anti-Semites: he blamed it on the Jews.

Technically, the former head of the Central Command in the Middle East didn’t say "Jews." He instead used a term that has become a new favorite for anti-Semites: "neoconservatives."

Or General Batiste

Bush on Rumsfeld Criticism: ‘No military guy is gonna tell a civilian how to react.'

Or General Eaton.

In making his point that Secretary Rumsfeld should resign, Eaton also maligned nearly all of the military's key leaders of the past four years. Eaton's attack was inaccurate, unprofessional and uncalled for. In summing up his case against the Secretary of Defense, the retired general illustrated a mindset that appears focused on issues that have already passed, rather than the problems being faced by commanders in the field today.

And guess what - Moveon didn't even invent the "Betray Us" term - the troops did as Time Online Reported way back in August.

AFTER being hailed as King David, the potential saviour of Iraq, the US commander General David Petraeus is facing a backlash in advance of his report to Congress in September on the progress of America’s troop surge.

Critics, including one recently retired general, are privately calling him "General Betraeus" on the grounds that he is too ambitious to deliver a balanced report on the war.

Lawrence Korb, a defence official under Ronald Reagan who is now at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank, said Petraeus was regarded as "the most political general since General (Douglas) Mac-Arthur".

It's also interesting to note, as John Stewart did last night in discussion with General Wesley Clark, that Petreaus actually wrote the manual on counter-insurgency for the Army, yet his current strategy in Iraq is 180 degrees from what he wrote.

Hm. Could it be that it's not really his idea? (I mean, it's not like he wrote report all by himself or anything is it?)

Possibly not if you listen to what Petreaus own commanding officer, Admiral Fallon head of CentCom, really thinks of him.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickensh*t" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

Might an "ass-kissing little chickenshit" toss his own long considered theories and opinions out the window in order to secure advancement and in effect BETRAY THE TROOPS in the process?

I think he might, and I think the fact that everything Petraus said contradicts the GAO, the CRS, The NIE and most recently released Pentagon Report on Iraq seems to back this up.

Democrats shouldn't be backing slowly away from Moveon.org - they should be piling on, particularly since everything Moveon.org has said about Petreaus - iS TRUE. (Psst! Just the way Republicans always do when what they're Playing the 'Traitor' Card!)

P.S. They should all take some lessons in courage from John Murtha (who has a few ribbons and medals to his credit, I think)

"I’m saying (Gen Petreaus) came back here at the White House’s request to purely make political statements," Murtha said. "That’s what I’m saying. There’s no question in my mind about it."

Vyan