WAR IN IRAQ
MoveOn says 'Betray Us' headline was a mistake
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The leader of the influential liberal organization MoveOn.org said Thursday it was a mistake to use "Betray Us" in a headline about General David Petraeus in a controversial New York Times advertisement last year.
But MoveOn executive director Eli Pariser defended the ad's criticism of the troop surge in Iraq.
Pariser, whose organization will celebrate its 10th anniversary Monday, said violence was down in Iraq, but that the Iraqi government has not made enough strides in reconciling differences between competing Sunni and Shiite religious factions.
Pariser told Gannett News Service and USA TODAY that a decline in violence would have come without the troop surge ordered last year by President George W. Bush.
Many military experts have credited the influx of more than 30,000 additional troops for making many areas of Iraq safer and more under the control of Iraqi forces than they were a year ago.
MoveOn.org ran the full-page ad in the Times just before Petraeus testified before Congress last September. The ad asked whether Petraeus was about to "Betray Us" by misrepresenting conditions in Iraq and the prospects of the surge making a difference.
The ad drew intense criticism from surge supporters and even Democrats who opposed the troop buildup, and 72 U.S. senators voted for a resolution condemning it. Bush called it a "disgusting" attack on a military commander in wartime.
On the presidential campaign stump, Republican nominee John McCain gets some of his more enthusiastic responses when he condemns the ad.
Asked if the ad was a mistake, Pariser responded: "I wouldn't do the headline in the same way," largely because it was "twisted by the right wing."
But he said, "It is our job as a watchdog organization to raise these issues.
"It was a question of betrayal of trust, it was not calling him a traitor, personally," Pariser said. "It was a question of what he was doing in his job as a public official."
Petraeus this week moved from the top commander's position in Iraq to head of the Central Command in Florida. As he left, he lauded the U.S. service personnel that he said had helped bring stability to the country, but cautioned it was still a fragile situation that could be undone by too-rapid troop withdrawals.
Pariser said that the ad's central point remained true.
"Our point was that this was not a strategy that was going to bring about the kind of political reconciliation that we need and that still doesn't exist in Iraq," he said, arguing that "sectarian cleansing" was more responsible for reducing violence.
"It appears there is a reduction in violence," Pariser said, "but the main things that were driving that reduction in violence started before the surge actually took place."
MoveOn.org began a decade ago in defense of former President Clinton who was being impeached for lying about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The group, with more than 4 million members, has become a powerful force on the left by utilizing the organizing power of the Internet. It began with a $78 Internet domain registration fee but has raised $120 million since.
The group hopes to have 200,000 volunteers in 22 states registering voters and getting supporters of Democratic nominee Barack Obama to the polls this fall.
"They were really the first kind of political entity to start this online political organizing, mobilizing, fundraising" that candidates like Obama and 2004 contender Howard Dean have expanded on, said Democratic consultant Trevor Fitzgibbon.
Pariser said MoveOn.org has helped render obsolete the old political model "that really had politicians locked off from the electorate ... Now 10 years later every presidential candidate has to at least consider, 'how am I going to engage hundreds of thousands of people in my campaign?'
"It is a healthy thing," Pariser said, "to have people involved again in a new way."
Raasch's blog: Get more behind-the-scenes reports, context and analysis about politicians and the political process in Raasch's Furthermore blog. Look for it at http://gns.gannettonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS03.
Chuck Raasch is political editor for Gannett News Service. E-mail: craasch@gns.gannett.com.
I think you are a Goth gone wrong! (Which is kind of weird if you think about it)
But, whatever. Enjoy your lonesomeness, or whatever it is you call it.
"let's have a healthy "conversation"."
You are not really having conversations that go beyond patting each other on the back and telling one another how smart you all are. Like it or not, it is my belief that right-wing philosophy is the greatest danger this country faces. It is like the Black Death, and how can you be positive about that?
What in the he!! is really wrong with you? You act like such a creep. Given your crappy all the time negative comments, I think it would be safe to assume that you just plain don't generally get any, thus - the blow up doll jokes on you. What do think they keep saying that to you for?!
Get some, then come back and let's have a healthy "conversation". Until then, screw off! You are too much a creep to take seriously at all!
(You need to let some of your tension go, and your antagonizing manner is not AT ALL becoming!)