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WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a measure condemning MoveOn.org for a newspaper ad it ran last week attacking Gen. David Petraeus. The move came as President Bush accused Democrats of cowering to the liberal political action group.
The measure passed in a 72-25 vote, with none of the Democratic presidential candidates supporting it. Sponsored by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, never one to shy away from forcing Democrats to go on record on politically sticky issues, the amendment to the defense authorization bill did win the backing of 23 Democrats.
Click here to see how your senators voted.
Sens. Joe Biden and Barack Obama were absent from the vote, though Obama had voted 20 minutes earlier on a Democratic effort to circumvent the amendment. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd voted against the measure.
The amendment did not specifically name MoveOn.org, but expressed "the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, commanding general, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn(s) personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces."
But supporters made clear the measure was about MoveOn, and was aimed at giving senators "a chance to distance themselves from the notion that some group has them on a leash, like a puppet on a string."
"Who would have ever expected anybody to go after a general in the field at a time of war, launch a smear campaign against a man we've entrusted with our mission in Iraq?" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asked on the Senate floor. "Any group that does this sort of thing ought to be condemned. Let's take sides. General Petraeus or MoveOn.org. Which one are we going to believe? Which one are we going to condemn?"
In response, MoveOn officials said the group was going to buy TV ad time to attack McConnell, R-Ky., and other senators who voted against a measure offered a day earlier by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb to require troops to have equal down time at home as they have deployed in war zones. The measure failed.
"No wonder public approval of Congress is tanking. They’re so out of touch with reality that they can find time to condemn an ad but they can't do what most Americans want — vote to end this war," said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action.
The Senate vote followed a statement by Bush during a press conference at the White House in which he argued that Democrats are more concerned about riling MoveOn than about riling the U.S. military.
"I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad, and that leads me to come to this kind of conclusion: That most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org — are more afraid of irritating them — than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal," the president said.
"And (it's) one thing to attack me. It's another thing to attack somebody like Gen. Petraeus," Bush said.
Pariser responded to the president, saying Bush lied about the cause for war in Iraq.
"What's disgusting is that the president has more interest in political attacks than developing an exit strategy to get our troops out of Iraq and end this awful war," Pariser said. "The president has no credibility on Iraq: he lied repeatedly to the American people to get us into the war. ... Right now, there are about 168,000 American soldiers in Iraq, caught in the crossfire of that country's unwinnable civil war, and the president has betrayed their trust and the trust of the American people."
FOX News' Molly Hooper contributed to this report.
https://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html
The measure passed in a 72-25 vote, with none of the Democratic presidential candidates supporting it. Sponsored by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, never one to shy away from forcing Democrats to go on record on politically sticky issues, the amendment to the defense authorization bill did win the backing of 23 Democrats.
Click here to see how your senators voted.
Sens. Joe Biden and Barack Obama were absent from the vote, though Obama had voted 20 minutes earlier on a Democratic effort to circumvent the amendment. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd voted against the measure.
The amendment did not specifically name MoveOn.org, but expressed "the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, commanding general, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn(s) personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces."
But supporters made clear the measure was about MoveOn, and was aimed at giving senators "a chance to distance themselves from the notion that some group has them on a leash, like a puppet on a string."
"Who would have ever expected anybody to go after a general in the field at a time of war, launch a smear campaign against a man we've entrusted with our mission in Iraq?" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asked on the Senate floor. "Any group that does this sort of thing ought to be condemned. Let's take sides. General Petraeus or MoveOn.org. Which one are we going to believe? Which one are we going to condemn?"
In response, MoveOn officials said the group was going to buy TV ad time to attack McConnell, R-Ky., and other senators who voted against a measure offered a day earlier by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb to require troops to have equal down time at home as they have deployed in war zones. The measure failed.
"No wonder public approval of Congress is tanking. They’re so out of touch with reality that they can find time to condemn an ad but they can't do what most Americans want — vote to end this war," said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action.
The Senate vote followed a statement by Bush during a press conference at the White House in which he argued that Democrats are more concerned about riling MoveOn than about riling the U.S. military.
"I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad, and that leads me to come to this kind of conclusion: That most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org — are more afraid of irritating them — than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal," the president said.
"And (it's) one thing to attack me. It's another thing to attack somebody like Gen. Petraeus," Bush said.
Pariser responded to the president, saying Bush lied about the cause for war in Iraq.
"What's disgusting is that the president has more interest in political attacks than developing an exit strategy to get our troops out of Iraq and end this awful war," Pariser said. "The president has no credibility on Iraq: he lied repeatedly to the American people to get us into the war. ... Right now, there are about 168,000 American soldiers in Iraq, caught in the crossfire of that country's unwinnable civil war, and the president has betrayed their trust and the trust of the American people."
FOX News' Molly Hooper contributed to this report.
https://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html
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