Hillary Clinton spent some time on Fox News Sunday and told us that she would rather not be talking about MoveOn.org:

WALLACE: Senator, you have refused to criticize the MoveOn.org ad about General Petraeus. And in fact, this week you voted against a Senate resolution denouncing it.

President Bush said that you and other Democrats are more afraid - his word - afraid of irritating the left wing and MoveOn than you are about insulting the American military. Does he have a point?

H. CLINTON: No, he doesn't. But I think it's clear I don't condone attacks on anyone who has served our country with distinction and with honor, and I have been very vocal in my support of and admiration for General Petraeus.

I did vote for a resolution that made it clear I do not condone and do condemn attacks on any American, impugning their patriotism, and that includes people like Senator Max Cleland and Senator John Kerry.

I think we need to call a halt to any kind of attacks, from wherever they come, that would go after anyone based on their service to America.

Pretty standard so far, but at this point she does a perfectly disciplined Jane Hamsher pivot and attack.

But you know, this is not a debate about an ad. This is a debate about how we end the war in Iraq. That's the debate that I want to be participating in, and I think a lot of people on the other side don't want us to have that debate.

Nicely done!

Despite the best efforts of the Bush administration, assorted pundits bloggers and the traditional media (including the NY Times and Washington Post), Americans have had it with this war and think the Dems in Congress have not done enough to end the war. According to a new Pew Research Center poll:

Check out the independent numbers. They are not moving President Bush's way. The only ones who feel good about the song and dance in Washington recently were Republicans (their numbers feeling the war was getting better went up a little).

President Bush and General Petraeus convinced no one else. The American people are speaking but are the leaders really listening. What a sad state that not even a few Republicans would support a Dem troop rotation that would give them as much time at home as in Iraq. It's not enough the war goes on, the elected Republicans are fine with the suffering on top of it.

Enough is enough.

New Virginia Senator James Webb tried an end run to stop the war in Iraq, by limiting the deployment options of the military. The idea of guaranteeing time between deployments made great sense rhetorically and it was hoped the idea of supporting the troops while stopping the war would enable them to pick off enough senators to get it done.

But it was not to be, as the WaPo reports, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now giving up on clever strategies and going back to the old strategy which did not work last spring:

Instead, Reid will again push for a firm deadline, this time June 2008, along with a stronger effort at cutting off war funding.

"It's all definite timelines," Reid said.

The Senate will resume the war debate today, and Reid invited Republicans to offer proposals. His spokesman said that several possibilities are being negotiated, although it appeared unlikely they will meet the 60-vote threshold to pass.

Rudy Giuliani took the MoveOn.org ad calling General David Petraeus, David "Betray Us," and made it a campaign plus for him. He's gone after them hard and rightfully so. General Petraeus made our esteemed elected leaders look even more buffoonish than usual. He was calm, answered their questions with authority and acted as one would expect a high-ranking military man to act, with class and dignity. MoveOn attacked a good man for partisan political purposes and Rudy is now using it as a weapon:

As for the candidates on the Dems side, Richard Cohen takes them to task today:

Almost instantly, though, it got pretty hard to find a Democratic presidential candidate willing to dispute MoveOn.org. To his credit, Joe Biden did. "I don't buy into that," he said. "This is an honorable guy. He's telling the truth." But lonesome Joe, whose virtues have yet to come to the attention of the vast and apathetic electorate, was seconded only by Joe Lieberman, not a presidential candidate, and John Kerry, a man whose tomorrow is yesterday. When Clinton was asked about the ad, she avoided answering.

It may seem unfair to single out Clinton in this matter when the bunker in which she took shelter was crowded with her fellow quivering candidates. But Clinton is the front-runner, quite possibly the next president of the United States, so it is reasonable to focus on her and wonder if, as some allege, she does indeed have a spine. In this instance, it was nowhere to be found.

This was the opportunity for Hillary Clinton so show that she has what it takes to be commander-in -chief (shudder) of the U.S. military and she punted. A more astute politician -- such as her husband -- would have seen the advantage of defending a career Army officer and highly regarded leader and bent over backwards to make it known that they didn't agree with the offensive ad. Clinton failed and Rudy grabbed the ball and ran with it. That action may have cemented his cred with conservatives who abhor the MoveOn crowd and conservative Democrats who feel Hillary has wandered a little too far into left field for their tastes (note: link to NY Times piece for TimeSelect members until midnight tonight).

MoveOn has accomplished two things with this inane ad campaign, a campaign they will continue to run: they've alienated a good portion of the electorate and pushed them toward Rudy who could hold them with his unique blend of social liberalism and national defense conservatism.

This story at Fox might explain why Hillary Clinton and all the others missed their Sister Souljah moment.

In just the 2006 election cycle, MoveOn.org spent $27 million in advocacy to elect a Democratic majority in Congress and used its formidable fund-raising clout to propel numerous Democratic challengers to House and Senate victories. By comparison, the NRA PAC donated $11 million in 2006.

"They give away and raise about three times as much as the National Rifle Association," said Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics. "A tremendous amount of money, especially when you consider how quickly they came on the scene."

Jay Cost at RCP writes that essentially what MoveOn and others have done is to replace the national party system with a network of shadow parties. It makes much more sense to see MoveOn and their actions as a part of the Democratic Party.

While it would seem that 2006 was the year that everything went wrong in Iraq, it would appear that 2007 will be the year that the tide has turned significantly for the better. In further developments of progress in the region, the AP is reporting that the Shiite sheiks in the southern part of Iraq are showing an interest in forming an alliance with US troops in order to combat extremists and insurgents. This would be similar to the alliance between the military and the Sunnis in western Iraq where such an alliance has delivered a tremendous blow to al-Qaida forces as well as aided significantly in lowering violence levels.

An alliance with the Shiite Sheiks would provide solid re-enforcements for the military in curbing the violence in the Shiite areas. Additionally, it can free up American personnel to move towards the Iranian border where it can curb smuggling and illegal entries of extremist/insurgent re-enforcements.

While there is much blame to go around for the initial failures in Iraq, it is clear that Donald Rumsfeld's leadership and strategy was lacking to say the least. With the new leadership present in the form of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General Petraeus, Iraq is turning around significantly. The region is becoming more and more stabilized with of the locals are turning on al-Qaida. While total success is far from a given, it is clear that success is achievable. Additionally, with less 'bad news' coming out of Iraq, options for de-funding the war become less and less probable. Considering that Democrats could not tabulate enough votes for withdrawal in the early part of 2007, to muster enough votes now with all the progress that is being made would be even more unlikely.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has fired back at criticism put forth by Rudy Giuliani regarding Clinton's refusal to condemn the MoveOn.org NY Times ad which blasted General Petraeus by referring to him as "General Betray Us." This ad caused a major public outcry and Giuliani has capitalized on the situation as an opportunity to put Clinton on the defensive. Her tepid response was the following as noted by wcbstv.com:

"It's hardly surprising that Mayor Giuliani is running the first negative ad of the '08 campaign, given his inability to justify his unqualified support for President Bush's failed Iraq strategy."

How original.

There are two problems with Clinton's response. First, it is not a deep and profound statement rebutting anything that Giuliani has said. It seems more along the lines of a casual blow off. Second, Clinton does not condemn the MoveOn advertisement in her response in any way. This is going to cost her points with the public a public that has responded quite negatively to the controversial advertisement.

This has been a bad week for the Democrats with their treatment of General David Petraeus as said treatment has left a bad taste in the public's mouth. The MoveOn ad has piled on more public relations damage for the Democrats. Unless Clinton repudiates the ad, then she will suffer the negative public relations (and public opinion) fate as well.

As David and Scott argued yesterday about Rudy Giuliani's full court press on Hillary Clinton concerning the MoveOn.org ad, I thought this column by Charles Hurt at the New York Post highlighted the opportunity that Hillary missed:

It could have been her Sister Souljah moment, that turning point in 1992 when Bill Clinton showed his moxie by pushing back in outrage at the activist rapper who suggested there be a week to "kill white people."

But instead of standing up to extremists in her party, Hillary echoed the ad's accusation that Petraeus was "cooking the books."

...

She should instead be a front-runner and begin her long journey toward calming reservations about her among independents and even Republicans who are sick and tired of the GOP.

Exactly. Couple this with the hiring of Sandy the Burglar as part of her inner circle, she is definitely either not concerned with how she appears to the mainstream of the country or she is blowing several big chances that will hurt her in the general election. She certainly isn't calming any fears about her scandal-ridden past, why beg for more trouble?

Decrying MoveOn should be simple enough, but this post by Jay Cost indicates that MoveOn is becoming an integral part of the Democratic party infrastructure. With the loss of Hillraiser Norman Hsu, maybe she needs the money?

Hillary Clinton took an opportunity to interview General Petraeus and decided to make it a political ad for her campaign. Typical Clinton.

The entire impetus for the good general to appear was for two reasons; first, he was requested and complied. Second, so he could report the progress in the surge to the esteemed body and tell his plans for the future. Instead, Hillary took the opportunity to appeal to her base of insanely anti-war Democrats and gain that oh so important street cred with the "nutroots" who seem to be guiding the party of John F. Kennedy into oblivion.

The simple fact that Petraeus is above reproach is beyond Hillary as she has one goal in mind and that's winning the nomination by pleasing the raging, screaming, but totally flaccid liberal hoards. It's a losing strategy for the general elections but a highly appealing one for the primaries.

Petraeus has actually made Americans believe in victory again and that's completely unacceptable to the Democratic base that has invested capital and sweat in a complete loss. They don't want defeat with honor, they want defeat with utter embarrassment so we don't ever try to defend ourselves again. If we win, America wins. If we lose, the Democrats win. Those are the stakes and that is the future of this greatest Republic.

. . . hard. He's red hot. He's steamed. He wants everybody to know that what Hillary Clinton said to General Patraeus is way, way out of bounds. She's no better than MoveOn.org and their terrible puns. But, precisely, what part of Clinton's oratory was it at yesterday's Armed Services Committee testimony that crossed the line?

"The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief."

There you have it. A sentiment echoed by practically every other Democrat in Congress, and more than a couple Republicans, has sent Rudy Giuliani over the edge, causing him to proclaim,

"It is time for Americans to really insist that American politicians move away from character assassination and this is exactly what they attempted to do with General Patraeus."

Right. Rudy's above petty partisanship. He'd never call the credibility of another person or party into question for his own political gain. He'd never say something inflamatory like,

"If any Republican is elected president--and I think obviously I would be the best at this--we will remain on the offensive and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,"

Oh wait. He did say that. You see, the way he sees it, every Republican is inherently better at protecting the country than every Democrat. And he bases this on the performance of none other than George W. Bush. Call me a character assassin if you must, but there's something that requires the willing suspension of disbelief.

MoveOn.org, the formerly extreme, now mainstream organization published a despicable ad calling General Petraeus General "Betray-us" and generally demeaned the man and his command.

Petraeus has always been a great soldier and a stright-shooter and a soldiers soldier. Anyone who has read anything about his career knows that he has excelled at every commend he has held and unbeknownst to the military-hating Moveon crowd, not just anyone can become a four-star general. It takes intense training for years, incredible amounts of education and a small bit of luck. Petraeus holds a Masters in Public Administration and a PhD in International Relations. I would suspect that neithet Pinch Sulzberger or any of the leadership at MoveOn has even remotely the experience, education or credentials that General Petraeus has. Then man is also highly decorated, in fact, Petraeus is the best Commanding General we've had since maybe Omar Bradley.

The New York Times is complicit in the smear of Petraeus by not only running the vile ad but running it at nearly a 50% discount in the first section of the paper on the day the General briefed Congress. The Times ran an ad defending the President's policies and supporting our troops paid for by Freedoms Watch, which was made to pay much more for the same type ad.

In essence, the NY Times is shilling for an organization that smears our troops, their leader and America and doing it for pennie on the dollar. This should put to rest any argument about media bias.

The General handled it with the class a military officer should:

Petraeus called portions of MoveOn.org's ad "flat, completely wrong" and the rest "at least more than arguable."

Note he was not shrill or defensive because he has much more pressing matters--such as winning a war--to worry about than a whiny, solipsistic collection of communist hacks who are hastening the steady decline of a once-great newspaper. Enjoy falling behind the Newark Star-Ledger in readership Pinch.

A stunning and thought provoking article at the Independent:

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, expressed long-term interest in running for the US presidency when he was stationed in Baghdad, according to a senior Iraqi official who knew him at that time.

Sabah Khadim, then a senior adviser at Iraq's Interior Ministry, says General Petraeus discussed with him his ambition when the general was head of training and recruitment of the Iraqi army in 2004-05.

"I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said, 'No, that would be too soon'," Mr Khadim, who now lives in London, said.

Critics of the war in Iraq will be quick to say that this is proof that General Petraeus is cooking the books to make it look like progress is being made no matter what the reality. But for whom the only option is victory, this should be welcome news.

If Petraeus is a man of great ambition who has set his sights on the top job, he will also realize that there is only one way he gets to be president: he wins in Iraq. That means the troops come home and Iraq stays stable. If that happens, Petraeus will certainly have the potential to be a huge force in American politics. But if critics of the war are right about Iraq, they have nothing to fear about a political Petraeus.

America has a long tradition of successful generals becoming president, going all the way back to Washington himself. A winning Petraeus is becoming president is a very real possibility. The real wonder is that we haven't had a general president since Eisenhower. Wesley Clark gave it a shot, but apparently Americans were not impressed with high altitude bombing of Yugoslavia.

The Iraq war is going nowhere fast. To know this, all you have to do is listen to the people selling it, especially General Patraeus and George W. Bush. To them, our success can best be measured by the promise of cutting 30,000 troops by next summer, even though the military long ago told us that there was no way it could sustain the current level of soldiers any longer. Indeed, you go to war with the army you have. Success then, is returning to the way the war was previously prosecuted. 130,000 troops were woefully inadequate from 2003-2007, so let's try it again. That makes absolutely no sense. Does Bush think the country so stupid that it doesn't remember that he was forced to implement the surge in response to the chaos that resulted from his own failed policies? Consider the following exchange between Bush and Nancy Pelosi:

When top Democratic leaders visited him at the White House this week, President Bush told them he wanted to "find common ground" on Iraq. But when the president said he planned to "start doing some redeployment ," the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, cut him off.

"No you're not, Mr. President," Ms. Pelosi interjected. "You're just going back to the presurge level."

Tonight, the president will do his best to try and convince a television audience that this stale bread is "New and Improved!" but what's new about it, exactly? That we've now armed Sunni militias who have decided it's in their self-interest to rat out Al-Qaida? They still despise the Shia, and now they're better armed. Sounds promising.

If the surge has worked, as Bush and Patraeus insist, wouldn't it be more logical to keep surging? Instead, to build on whatever success we've seen in Anbar, we'll be removing troops. They aren't even following their own strained logic at this point. The real problem, of course, is that the surge hasn't done what we'd hoped. While it may have quelled pockets of violence, its larger objectives remain dramatically void. Today, in fact, we learned that the Iraqi Parliament's attempt at an oil-revenue deal has collapsed.

Well, Barack Obama, among others, has heard and seen enough. On the campaign trail yesterday, he detailed what he would and would not do if he were in charge:

Senator Barack Obama yesterday presented his most extensive plan yet for winding down the war in Iraq, proposing to withdraw all combat brigades by the end of the next year while leaving behind an unspecified smaller force to strike at terrorists, train Iraqi soldiers and protect American interests....

"What's at stake is bigger than this war: it's our global leadership," Mr. Obama said. "Now is a time to be bold. We must not stay the course or take the conventional path because the other course is unknown."

You can read the full speech here. While there are no easy choices in Iraq, this difficult one is certainly better than Mr. Bush's "Back to the Future" plan.

It would appear that General Petraeus' report has done very little to sway the opinions of the Democrats in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid has blasted Petraeus' Iraq plan (which includes drawing down 5,000+ troops by the end of the year and close to an additional 30,000 by summer's end) Reid echoed the sentiment of Speaker Nancy Pelosi that was expressed yesterday in a press release that lambasted Petraeus' plan.

According to the AP, Democrat leadership would prefer a more rapid withdrawal of a significant number of troops and the remaining troops would serve in a more limited capacity.

This posturing by the Democrats may have SERIOUS repercussions if the public relations strategy they are employing fails. Within much of the public, there is a sentiment growing that the Democrats are posturing against Petraeus as a means of scoring political points in order to win in the next election. If the Democrats become pegged as a party that seeks its own agenda at the risk of causing serious harm to the troops in the field, the public will become resentful and the Democrats may find themselves in trouble with a segment of the voting population.

All the major outlets are reporting (at about 4:40pm on 9/11/07) that President Bush, in his nationwide address this Thursday evening, will announce that he is taking the advice of General Petraeus and will reduce American forces in Iraq to pre-surge levels next summer, if the conditions on the ground allow it:

President Bush will tell the nation this week he plans to reduce the American troop presence in Iraq by about 30,000 by next summer, but will condition those and further cuts on continued progress, The Associated Press has learned. In a primetime television address, probably Thursday, Bush will endorse the recommendations of his top general and top diplomat in Iraq, following their appearance at two days of hearings in Congress, administration officials said.

If this report is correct, this move by the president cuts the Democrats off at the knees on the Iraq issue, politically. They won't even be able to claim that they were the ones that moved to require a token reduction in troops in Iraq. Now, they'll be forced to choose from the following: agree with Bush's call, ignore their own advice to "listen to the Generals" and beg for an immediate substantial withdrawal without conditions, or cut funding for the troops. All three options are major political losses for the Democrats. And a win for our country and the people of Iraq.

This should please Moveon.org...