Monday, September 10, 2007

An impolitic left

The leftist political action committee, MoveOn.org has a controversial new advertisement attacking Gen. David H. Petraeus by calling him General "Betray Us."

First things first: I am an anti-war advocate, and I'm not a Petraeus fan. Let's be clear about that.

Second, if you criticize Petraeus for not providing a balanced and unbiased accounting of the war, fine. If you call him a misguided dupe of the GOP political establishment, OK. If you claim that he is a GOP mouthpiece driven by partisanship and not by objective analysis of the war's progress, I'm with you.

But ...

If you call Petraeus a traitor, you're on your own.

It's ad-hominem character assassination at its worst, and liberals shouldn't accept or tolerate it. Period.

2 comments:

  1. I am an anti-war advocate, and I'm not a Petraeus fan. Let's be clear about that.

    Fair enough.

    Second, if you criticize Petraeus for not providing a balanced and unbiased accounting of the war, fine. If you call him a misguided dupe of the GOP political establishment, OK. If you claim that he is a GOP mouthpiece driven by partisanship and not by objective analysis of the war's progress, I'm with you.

    Got proof of any of this? Or is it just opinion?

    If you call Petraeus a traitor, you're on your own.

    It's ad-hominem character assassination at its worst, and liberals shouldn't accept or tolerate it. Period.


    There you go, being all balanced. How am I supposed to dislike you for being a lefty when you say stuff like this?

    :-}

    PS. How was the trip?

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Got proof of any of this? Or is it just opinion?"

    don_cos - My point was neither to accept or deny the veracity of such claims, but to point out that there is some criticism, even if that criticism may be factually inaccurate or debatable, that is acceptable criticism. Even if people speak such criticism only as opinion, we might dispute its accuracy, but I wouldn't call it out of bounds in the realm of discussion. When we move into the realm of criticism that is ad-hominem character assassination, that's beyond the pale of acceptable criticism. That's my point.

    Oh, and except for having to spend the night in the Newark airport on my return trip because of delays and such, the trip was great. But I am glad to be back home!

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