Drawing a line for discourse

Sen. John Cornyn:

The now-infamous Moveon.org ad -- “General Petraeus or General Betray Us” -- marks a potential watershed in U.S. political discourse. A radical-left interest group has undertaken to accuse our military leadership of treason for working towards victory in the war against Islamic terrorists. The open question now is -- will the majority Congressional party continue to tacitly endorse this scurrilous tactic by its most activist supporters, or will this defamation be repudiated? We are about to find out.

The ad in the New York Times defamed a highly respected, highly decorated four star General who has dedicated his life to serving our country. The assault had a specific purpose. It was designed to discredit Gen. David Petraeus in advance of a congressionally ordered report on the situation in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus, while stressing that much work remains, delivered good news about the progress we’re making in the war against Islamic terrorists and rooting out al Qaeda.

For a century or more, as political leaders of both parties have robustly debated defense policy, they have demonstrated the wisdom to avoid personal attacks on the integrity and honor of our military leadership in the field.

But this assault on Gen. Petraeus thus far appears to have the tacit support of one of our major political parties. Most of their members have gone to great lengths to avoid repudiating the ad.

In fact, there is substantial evidence that some members of that party are using Moveon.org as their public hit man, to do the dirty work of character assassination in public while elected officials pretend their hands are clean. On the eve of Gen. Petraeus’s appearance before Congress last week, one unnamed Democratic Senator was quoted as saying, “No one wants to call [Petraeus] a liar on national TV. The expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us.” A highly sympathetic profile of an anti-war coalition in the New York Times Sunday Magazine Sept. 9 underscored the close working relationship between the group, including Moveon.org representatives, with Congressional leadership offices -- unnamed, of course.

Shortly after the advertisement appeared, I sponsored a resolution supporting Gen. Petraeus, condemning character assassination of our active duty military leaders and repudiating the Moveon.org ad. The majority leadership made certain the resolution did not receive a vote on the Senate floor last week.

This stratagem is unusual in several ways. Why would a legislative majority be a party to shooting a messenger for bringing them good news? One possible answer -- reports of progress in Iraq are not good news to some in Congress, particularly those who have publicly declared we’ve already been defeated there.

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John Cornyn is one of the best senators serving. He always has an intelligent response to the opposition and most of the time they find it difficult to respond as they did this time. He has correctly concluded that the slander of the general was because the facts he was asserting showed their prior arguments to be invalid and wrong. His piece is worth reading in full.

The Democrats are now left with having to defend the indefensible attack by MoveOn. MoveOn itself is on the defensive. This should be a turning point. Perhaps the Democrats will return to the real definition of the word lie for a starting point.