When claims don't "ad" up

Moveon.org ran a full page ad in the New York Times that, amongst many other claims, asserts that General David Petraeus is a traitor.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

Comparing General Petraeus and moveon.org is just silly.  Although it is worth noting that General Petraeus has served his country for the past 33 years and is the US military's foremost authority on counterinsurgency operations.  I challenge moveon.org to prove that their entire staff has more combined military service or counterinsurgency expertise than General Petraeus has.

Moveon.org first implies that he has been a bad guy for a while.

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.”

Yes, General Petraeus is so clearly out of touch that the Senate confirmed him in January 2007 by a vote of, wait for it, 81-0.  Not one dissenting vote.  Not only did moveon.org favorites Barack and Hillary not vote against General Petraeus, they actually voted for him.  (BTW, Senators Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Diane Feinstein, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, and Carl Levin also voted for the good General.)  Perhaps "constantly at war with the facts" were not the right words.

Surely, moveon.org made some accurate assertions in their hack job, right?

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed.

Now that's just disingenuous. The same report that Moveon.org cites as a source of this conclusion states, regarding the effectiveness of the surge

There are signs of encouraging tactical successes in the Baghdad capital region, which remains the epicenter of enemy focus and of their competing strategy (pg 126-7)

So in just two short months since it has been in place, the surge is succeeding in the heart of the insurgency.  This is very different from the conclusion that moveon.org reaches from the same section. 

So if this ad isn't fact based, what is behind moveon.org's attack ad?  It's either poor information or pure politics.  It would be ironic if the cause was poor information since the Jones Report, which moveon.org cites, explicitly explains the polarizing assessments of progress.

As the international media is mostly Baghdad-based, successful attacks receive disproportionate coverage relative to some very real progress achieved in other areas of the country, such as Anbar province. The result, unfortunately, is enemy momentum in the battle of strategic messaging despite the growing popular rejection of terrorist ideology in that region. The people’s outrage at al Qaeda’s savagery and their realization that it is a movement not of liberation but of occupation, has helped transform this province from being the most violent to being one of the least violent in Iraq.

Of course, politics is more likely to blame.  Regardless of their motivation, moveon.org's smear campaign is irresponsible and slanderous.  Unfortunately, moveon.org's liberal bias leaves them incapable of honoring the patriotism of General Petraeus and accepting the progress of the surge.

Update [Flip]:  Today, notwithstanding widespread rebuke of their shameless ad, MoveOn.org ups the ante, circulating this e-mail suggesting Petreaus has been lying to Congress and reminding you it's your duty in a post-9/11 world to oppose the Bush war machine.