Swiftboated Again

Ring the bell and the Rightie attack dogs drool.

In a week characterized by some of the finest slurs lovingly hand-crafted by the ugliest, most racist, most hate-filled minds on the planet, they outdid themselves this morning.

MoveOn dot Org ran a full page ad in the New York Times today. The headline (the attention grabber): “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”

Rush Limbaugh went ballistic (nearly apoplectic). Seems he’s suddenly against even the hint of name-calling. The Rightie blogosmear heard the bells and the poop deck is slick with their saliva.*

(* One can never accuse them of not living up to expectorations.)

Typical (brain-dead) example: “Do Democrats stand by Move On or Denounce them?” (from the oxymoronically entitled blog “Wake Up America”)

We’ll leave aside the inability to properly spell MoveOn. After all, these imbeciles don’t even know how to use the term “Democratic.” MoveOn is an independent organization that’s gone after Democratic leadership, as well. (e.g. Steny Hoyer).

Via Michelle Malkin we see that the GOP leadership has directly asked the Democratic leaders to stand up and be heard, to denounce Move On and their baseless accusations.

Will they? Or will they let their silence make them complicit with Move On in their disgraceful conduct and accusations against this General that has devoted his life to his country?

Gee, where were these prick “patriots” when Shinseki was fired? When … well, you fill in the name. Petraeus’ track record on the truth and his willingness to collaborate with the Administration in the political management of this war is well-established. But all the “analysis” ends at the headline. None of Pavlov’s attack dogs want to drool over the SUBSTANCE of the ad. Nope. It’s the classical “wedge” attack, and, like the morons that they generally are, “progressives” are drinking the Koolaid. I’m listening to Ed Schultz, and all he and his listeners want to talk about is “Is the MoveOn ad OVER THE TOP“?

Here’s the Memeorandum list at the top of the page. They’ve successfully pushed this “point” — this swiftboating of MoveOn — to the front of the line, and you’ll notice that nearly every blog is a rightie blog. A Rush catamite blog. Bush’s version of Tiberius’ “minnows.”

Pete Hegseth / The Tank: Will Democrats Denounce MoveOn?

John Feehery / The Hill: The Tail That Wags the Dog

Patrick O’Connor / The Politico: Lieberman blasts MoveOn ad

Maha / The Mahablog: Pooh-poohing Petraeus — The White House report on Iraq …

Skippy / skippy the bush kangaroo: well, they could have called him “gen. filet us”!!

Mike Carney / On Deadline: Petraeus, Crocker brief Congress on state of war in Iraq

Agence France Presse: Democrats slurring Iraq General : Republicans

Taylor Marsh: The Ad – The Trap — Taylor Marsh LIVE! — LISTEN LIVE

Carl Hulse / The Caucus: In Congress, Star Witnesses Appear on Iraq

Spree / Wake up America: Do Democrats stand by Move On or Denounce them? -UPDATE- Petraeus Speech/Statement

baldilocks: Rock Bottom (UPDATED)

Mike Nizza / The Lede: Preview: Petraeus Goes to Washington

Michelle Malkin: Despicable, disgusting MoveOn.org Update: GOP calls on Dems to disavow the haters

Betsy Newmark / Betsy’s Page: The Democrats are on thin ground

Game. Set. Match.

(Taylor Marsh’s blog is pretty good, and recommended, but you can see how the “mainstream” media and the “professional” Washington blogs have been turned by the Swiftboaters. )

RealTime blogging Ed Schultz (verbatim): “I’m not gonna sugar-coat this: They’re [MoveOn] going after General Petraeus in this ad.”

Again, the “analysis” is of the headline only. Of course it DOES drive traffic to actually read the ad.

But even that give the Swiftboaters a kind of victory. What MoveOn has to say doesn’t mean jack, in all of this. They’re not getting our kids killed. They’re not begging congress to KEEP getting our kids killed. They haven’t killed literally hundreds of thousands of often innocent Iraqis. They are simply exercising their free speech. If I call General Petraeus a worthless ratfucker moron, it may be offensive, and it may be inaccurate, but it’s my free speech, and he can live with it. (Whether it makes him cry or not is his business).

MoveOn has EVERY RIGHT to say any damn thing they want.

The issue here is the testimony of Petraeus before congress. But the Swiftboating “brain” trust have successfully flipped the debate to MoveOn’s ad. Half the spineless assholes in the Democratic party are “I think the comments were out of line,” which I take extremely personally. When I was attacked by WorldNetDaily and Fox News in July, my intentionally hyperbolic (and completely understandable) comments were repudiated in the leftie blogosphere in the same manner.

I got news for you dumbasses: you ARE dumbasses.

Any time that these idiotic hatemongers on the Right can continually flummox, bamboozle, fluster and flimflam you, we can ONLY assume that you’re even dumber than they are. (And they are demonstrably dumb.) Unless and until we stop attacking Democrats and start attacking REPUBLICANS, they will continue to pull these stunts and LAUGH at you — with utter justification.

Doesn’t it EMBARRASS any of you that they can make MoveOn’s ad the issue and we chase our tails for the next week trying to answer the question on manners put forth by the most ill-mannered, scum-sucking bastards this nation has ever seen (outside of the Southern Press during the Civil War)?

And doesn’t it shame ANY progressive that they can pull these cheap carney magician’s sleight-of-hand tricks again and again and again and again, and we fall for them EVERY TIME?

So, the issue is the AD headline and not the WAR? (Here’s the ad

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress.”

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there. We’ll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won’t hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

So: in order to speak, every dumbass progressive (trailing advanced degrees like poopy diapers) has to PREFACE their remarks with a denunciation and/or repudiation of another progressive for exercising their free speech rights?

(Hey: that’s what people like Radio Left, Columnist Steven Silver and Newshounds did to ME. )

Here’s a perfect example of what’s happened to the debate. Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly posts a very short & sweet observation:

Political Animal
September 10, 2007

COOKING THE BOOKS….Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Republicans are making a big mistake by spending all their TV time this morning complaining about accusations that Gen. Petraeus is cooking the books in his assessment of progress in Iraq? Repeating the accusation, even if it’s only to denounce it, is still repeating the accusation. And it means that everyone watching today’s hearing is learning over and over and over that a lot of people don’t trust Petraeus, something they might not have known before since Democrats aren’t mentioning it and not everyone reads the inside pages of the New York Times.

This strikes me as a very dumb thing to do.

[RealTime blogging: ABC 3PM News, top story "More Time is Needed" Petraeus tells Congress. Second lead: "Republicans are livid about an expensive ad by MoveOn dot Org. ... Tony Snow/White House sound bite: "the ad about General Petraeus ... It is boorish. It is childish..."]

Now, read the COMMENTS below Drum’s elegant blog. The Righties slither in, turn the conversation to the MoveOn ad, and the idiot “progressives” and “moderates” go right along, and, in MINIATURE, you can watch the whole Swiftboating strategy play out.

It’s no longer about Drum’s column and observation. It’s about the Rightie talking point.

It’s about the STRATEGY of Swiftboating. It’s about the gullibility of well-meaning citizens in the face of fascist propaganda. (Sorry, but a spade must be called a spade herein. Please take a moment to repudiate my ‘immoderate’ speech when responding).

Jesus.

Even a dog, if you beat it long enough, KNOWS when to flinch. KNOWS to avoid the rocks in the hands of schoolchildren.

But, while elephants never forget, donkeys evidently never remember.

And General Petraeus?

Why, what’s important is defending his honor from the free speech of American citizens. (Oh, and let’s extend the war another ten years, as noted in the infamous ad:)

What he’s actually saying (since no one is listening — hypnotized by the calculated Swiftboating) is this:

Perhaps, after a year, the SURGE can end.

Let’s see: the American people vote to end this war. The new Democratic congress rolls over and plays dead. Bush responds with an ESCALATION.

Which they are NOW insisting MUST continue.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Courage.

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized