To nit-pick, Hillary Clinton did vote no.

You could look at it this way: The Democrats can afford to spit in the faces of the MoveOn crowd. After all, who else is MoveOn going to support? The Green Party and split the left vote? Because that worked really well in the 2000 presidential race -- or is their collective memory that bad?

This is the Democrats saying, 'Yeah, you'll keep voting for us, because we're less worse than the alternative. Now give us your money."

This is a goddamned disgrace. I don't know if I can in good conscience continue voting for Democratic candidates - they have been such an incredible disappointment in the last 10 years.

You nailed it, FTR.

And yeah, DiFi sold her incumbent ass to the corporate lobbyists from RIAA and defense long ago. Bitch sold out. She's fully embraced the Beltway Blinders she's wearing. She needs a primary challenger when she goes up next. And Boxer and Pelosi need to smack some sense into her.

thankfully, both of nj's dems voted no

I agree with Noctua. For Obama, this would not have been a fight worth having, not strategically. In the larger arena, Hillary's already taken her stance on the debacle and therefore a no-vote made sense for her (and she *did* vote).

As for the rest of the dems, whether or not they censured MoveOn was probably a null point; they really shouldn't have, not because of MoveOn, but because Patreaus's report certainly was heavy-loaded with bullshit. Nonetheless, the dems have been eviscerated before by supporting groups who then later went on to support independents, thus losing a portion of their base by *doing the right thing*. They did this in 2000. Maybe they've become more sophisticated. Maybe not. We'll see.

~f~

As did Schumer. Which means at least we don't have to be embarrassed by our own state's representatives.

The bigger issue, however, is that senators in comfortable positions where they don't face much chance of being voted out next time around didn't take the opportunity to blast this for the partisan idiocy that it is.

When Republicans accuse Democrats of being spineless, it's hard to refute them in the face of bullshit like this.

Okay, this kind of proves there's no hope. I'm starting to feel comfortable with Flux's assertion in the "bloop" thread:

OK. I read otherwise. Thanks.

The organization recently asked members whether or not they should begin funding opponents of Democrats who are not voting to cut off funding for the war. Whether Republican, Democrat or third party. Based on their history, I would expect them to follow through with this.

Anyone else get the sinking feeling that the Dems will blow this election?

I think the condemnation was a good thing. Moveon fucking blew that one. General Petraeus was, in my opinion, at least partially a set up. You can say shit about Bush and get away with it, but talking shit about the military isn't looked upon kindly. Now, a person could very reasonably explain why Petraeus's report was not to be trusted without namecalling. You could say that it's wrong for the Bush administration to politicize General Petraeus like this. You could say that General Petraeus is a military man, and he knows what his superior officer wants from him. Any of these things are easy, and actually have entered the public discourse, but they are drowned out by General Betray-us. And now a lot of fence sitters are saying to themselves, "Well, look at the level of discourse on the Democratic side."

If I were to defend the ad, they'd have a point. The ad is fucking retarded. Betray-us. Congratulations on making a rhyme. Yes, there are valid points in the full text, about the cooked statistics and so on. But they made it so none of that matters; people aren't looking past the patently idiotic first line. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but whether or not they should look past the appearance is a moot point; people don't, and as long as they don't, that ad hurts the Democrats.

It's not really that they can "afford to spit in the faces of the MoveOn[.org] crowd" as much as it is that the Dems are surrendering to this criticism from the same group of Republicans who are responsible (or at least stood slient in the face of) for the dirtiest political marketing tactics ever seen: marketing campaigns financed by Republicans, disguised as a grassroots movements (a.k.a. astroturf). Just a few off the top of my head:

MoveAmericaForward.org - Financed by the White House
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - Or as it should have been name: Republican Veterans for Bush
Freedon's Watch - Another Bush financed group run by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (the original Iraq war propagandist)

My anger here, at least, isn't about loyalty to partisan groups. It's about outright hypocrisy.

Once again, I think Keith Olbermann sums up the situation surrounding this quite well in this opinion piece:

first of all "moveon" is backed by one of the richest guys in the world so I really don't think they needed your money. 2nd like you they have zero journalistic integrity they are a propaganda machine for the left. they niether care or even try to get at the truth .they only care about their points of view ,and will back it up with any kind of mythology they can come up with even manufacturing it,if they have to.

I haven't seen or read the "article" from "moveon" so I wont judge it but evidently it was wrong enough to make congress condemn it. look for the truth, even if you wish it were true but it's not then call them on it.