The Move-On Ad

Awful. Not, though, for the obvious reasons. Conservatives can puff themselves up and whine about attacks on General “Betrayus” all they want, for all I care. They've uncorked the swiftboat genie's bottle far too many times in the past for their complaints to ring as anything but surprise that they're the ones getting bitchslapped for a change. No, I don't like the ad because it focuses on Petraeus. Channels what should be an important, critical discussion into the same image-conscious dog and pony show that the media feeds on. Allows them to run stories about the administration spit polish and not the substance they're hiding. If the question is whether Patraeus is credible or not, then the liberal side has already lost that debate.

Which is to say, I think it was great of Move-On to run the ad. Someone on the left needs to do the dirty knife work like that and muddy the waters. I also think it's great that liberal commentators are, like me, washing their hands of it. It's important that the respectable face of the movement is seen as having too much integrity for that sort of thing. But I think the problem here is that the newsmedia are going to pick up on what should be a minor moment and run it into the ground and giving them that opportunity should be avoided.