By now, everyone is familiar with the MoveOn.org ad in the New York Times asking the question, "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" It has raised a firestorm. It should be clear that the general's testimony before Congress was a pathetic bunch of lies, including cherry-picked data and outright perjury (who really believes that he didn't run his prepared statement by the White House before making it?).But worse that General Petraeus's lies is the continued lack of a spine among Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and far too many of his followers. He actually allowed Republicans to get a vote on a resolution, sponsored by Texas Republican John Cornyn condemning MoveOn.org's ad - a resolution that garnered 72 votes. (N.B.: Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA, tried to put in a softer resolution, but it failed to get 60 votes.)
To her credit, Senator Clinton actually voted against the resolution. To his credit, Senator Dodd, another presidential contender (sort of) actually voted against the resolution. To their shame, Senators Obama and Biden ducked the vote. To their collective shame, many other Democrats voted for the resolution.
This is pathetic!
Republicans have never shied away from running disgusting ads, going back to a time long before the famed "Willie Horton" ad during the 1988 presidential campaign. Thomas Jefferson, the ideological grandfather of the modern Republican party, paid friends to publish sordid lies about his political opponents, from John Adams to Alexander Hamilton to many, many others.
And now that somebody has shown the spine to stand up and fight fire with fire, the Democratic leadership has shown once again that they are unfit to lead.
The time has come to rid the Democratic party of wimps, fools and idiots - and Harry Reid is among the worst of them. If the Senate Majority Leader were truly a leader, this completely hypocritical resolution would never have come to a vote. There would have been a Democratic caucus ahead of time, and those yellow-bellied wimps in the party would have been whipped into shape.
Doesn't anyone remember the concept of freedom of speech? Doesn't anyone remember the lies - the unpatriotic, un-American betrayals - spouted by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, Condi Rice, and others?
Doesn't anyone in Washington have the guts to stand up for true American values?
Apparently not - with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, and a couple of dozen of their colleagues. It's not enough. The time has come to flood our airwaves and our seats of government with true Americans - with true leaders.
Harry Reid must be replaced. He has betrayed us too many times.
Copyright 2007, Dan Jacoby
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