GOP Distorts MoveOn Ad

The following was posted yesterday, Tuesday, September 11, 2007 on the Huckabee for President website:


The disgraceful act of the leftist organization, moveon.org, has marked a new low watermark in American discourse. To accuse a patriotic, honorable, and highly decorated soldier like General David Petraeus of treason by intimating that he had betrayed his duty, his honor, and his country is appalling.

The full page ad in the New York Times run by this organization is an attack on our entire military – and George Soros should spend an equal amount of his vast wealth for another full page ad apologizing to General Petraeus and to every American who has served or who is serving in the military.

The very people who Soros savaged with his vile, despicable, and cowardly attack are the ones who have earned Mr. Soros and people of his ilk the right to display their pathetic hatred of this nation's military in a public forum.

While an apology to General Petraeus would be in order, one can’t expect it from the caliber of people who are devoid of dignity.

I call on every candidate for President, whether Democrat or Republican, to join in a condemnation of this outrageous insult to our military. The fact that such an abuse of free speech is legal doesn’t make it right or responsible. Surely everyone who wishes to be Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces can agree that the attack on the character of a General currently directing our troops in battle deserves condemnation. I hope that Democratic and Republican candidates alike will take a stand and denounce this dishonorable act."

So much wrong with this statement and so little time to point it out.... but I'll start by noting that the ad in question is "no attack on our entire military" nor is it "an outrageous insult to our military." The former Arkansas governor deserves credit for referring to the "Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces" rather than, as the current President does, the "Commander in Chief". (This may reflect more than a semantic difference, Mr. Bush's nomenclature unsurprising in a man who believes that he is not to be questioned by anyone or anything, least of all the two other branches of the federal government.)

More disturbing, though, is that Huckabee- and the other Republicans who have leapt onto the ad without questioning its veracity- have embraced a double standard. Yesterday, on September 11, Rudy Giuliani saw fit to take center stage at the 9/11 commemoration in lower Manhattan. But appearing were other notables- including the right-wing author Ann Coulter, who in "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" wrote of widows who formed a group after their husbands were killed in the terrorist attacks "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." She called them "self-obsessessed women" (who) "believed the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony." CBS News reported that she dubbed them "The Witches of East Brunswick.", referring to the town in New Jersey in which two of them then lived.

Given that Rudy Giuliani's campaign theme is "I was there at 9/11, Elect Me," it would be especially appropriate for a rival for the nomination, such as Huckabee, to question Giuliani's involvement with Coulter. We await such statements by Mr. Huckabee, Mitch McConnell, and others so exorcised by MoveOn.org's ad.