Recreant expedience

Marc Ambinder links approvingly to this Matt Yglesias post arguing that the Moveon ad wasn't that big a deal:

I completely agree with the dread DC Establishment that calling General Petraeus "General Betrayus" was dumb. That said, I'm staggered by the amount of emphasis that people inside this town are placing on this. One virtue of having moved to the Beltway is that I can tell you, the reader, a thing or to about the mood here and that while you might think the reverse is true, the truth of the matter is that the left-of-center establishment is being restrained in terms of expressing its absolutely fury at MoveOn over this. People seem to really think that this was not merely a misstep, but a huge blunder of world-historical proportions.

As best I can tell, it's all basically bull**** [censoring mine to avoid Google safesearch restrictions --Evan]. The whole fracas of Petraeus, Crocker, MoveOn, etc. has had, to a good first approximation, no impact whatsoever on anything of any significance. Bush continues to be stubborn. Republicans continue to back Bush. The war continues to go poorly and continues to be unpopular. There was nothing else that ever could have happened. A bunch of editors and politicians talked themselves into believing that this September showdown was crucially significant, but they were all wrong and their theory never made any sense.

My feeling is that Yglesias is wrong. It seems to me that Democrats were slowly chipping away at the votes necessary to sustain the war. There are plenty of Republican senators and congressman who are nervous about facing the electorate in 2008...and for good reason. If Democrats had just kept holding votes, they would've probably ended the war, because there were quite a few votes that were getting increasingly tentative as the election draws nearer. If you think senators like Norm Coleman aren't hearing the "Norm Coleman votes with President Bush 97% of the time" ads in his head....you're crazy.

What the Moveon ad did was give Republicans a reason to believe that perhaps they wouldn't be as politically hurt by their votes as they had expected (whether they are right or not is another question). This is why the media thinks that Republicans were guilty of faux outrage, which isn't so. Yes, the Republicans were acting in self-interest in making it an issue. Republicans were looking to rally around something that they could take to the American people.

When a liberal interest group charges an Army general with betrayal of his country (or appears to do so), that's a big deal. When the Democrats running for president -- the de facto leaders of the Democratic party -- refuse to condemn the ad for fear of angering that liberal interest group, that's a big deal. It's quite dangerous to send a message to our current military and the children who might be our military in the future that you can serve honorably and be condemned for your actions in uniform.

The Moveon ad crossed the line. Yes, the rest of the ad wasn't as bad as the headline, but it was the headline that sent the message. The Democrats running for president all missed their chance for a "Sister Souljah" moment by choosing political expedience over standing up for the men and women in uniform. A pity for them, and for America.

Posted by Evan @ 09/23/07 08:04 PM

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