A Reader Expresses Disgust at Senate Condemnation of MoveOn

I'm "turning over the mic" to a reader who sent me this message about yesterday's political stunt by the GOP:

[T]he reason this has caused me to taste my own bile so bitterly this afternoon is it shows that this is the kind of pathetic b*llsh*t that our Senate has time for--perhaps being of the view that we have no domestic or international policy problems that we should actually be worried about.

The Senate today approved a non-binding resolution as an amendment to the FY 2008 DoD appropriation bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, H.R. 1585. Those who voted for the amendment include 72 of our 100 senators, including every Republican and a lot of Democrats, including Dems that we're supposed to like, like Diane Feinstein and Jim Webb.

The relevant text of the amendment says:

". . . . (8) A recent attack through a full-page advertisement in the New York Times by the liberal activist group, Moveon.org, impugns the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces. (b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate . . . . (2) to strongly condemn any effort to attack the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces . . . ."

That's right, folks, the Senate of the United States doesn't have the time to pass virtually any meaningful legislative initiative, but it does have time to agree, as a matter of almost sort-of law, that a particular political organization is a "liberal activist group." The statement in the Congressional Record by the sponsor of the resolution, John Cornyn of Texas, repeatedly states that MoveOn.org is to blame for genuine wrong-doing.

The ad that MoveOn ran in the NYT is here. For what it's worth, they give cites to support for the claims in the ad on this page. And both they and other bloggers give some evidence that the there has been a bit of a vast, right-wing conspiracy afoot to attack MoveOn.

Among other things, as a part of this backlash John McCain has publicly said that MoveOn--presumably like that now fairly significant majority of Americans who oppose the war--"ought to be thrown out of the country." That's right, you heard me. He said those words. We all "ought to be thrown out of the country."

Yup. A majority of Americans want our country to withdraw from Iraq, but the group that advocates that majority view most vociferously is merely some lunatic fringe. And anyone who disparages the military should be thrown out of the country. Let's see, does that include the Republicans who wore purple band-aids at the 2004 GOP National Convention to mock Lt. John Kerry, USN?