MoveOn's mania and the Democrats

NY Times:

There is no mistaking the influence of MoveOn.org, with its 3.2 million members and powerful fund-raising apparatus, within the Democratic Party.

This liberal activist group has come to occupy a prominent seat at the table among the party elite, so much so that Republicans leaped at a chance to hold Democrats and their presidential candidates responsible for MoveOn’s positions after it ran an advertisement attacking the credibility of Gen. David H. Petraeus.

MoveOn, which has raised tens of millions of dollars for Democratic candidates since its inception in 1998, clearly enjoys friendly relations with Democratic Party officials. Its leaders have met several times over the year with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to discuss policy and strategy on ending the Iraq war.

MoveOn representatives also take part, as co-founders of a coalition of antiwar groups together under the umbrella Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, in a daily conference call with the Democratic leadership staff on Capitol Hill to coordinate efforts.

Despite conservatives’ efforts to lump together the grass-roots organization and the party and to force individual Democrats to take responsibility for MoveOn’s wordplay on General Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, as “General Betray Us” in its advertisement in The New York Times, the relationship between the two is often complicated and, at times, shows visible fractures.

“I think Democrats understand that when we can join forces and work together, it’s very powerful,” said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn Political Action. “And then when we can’t, it’s not fun.”

...

Democratic leaders in Congress and presidential campaigns said they winced when they saw the MoveOn advertisement. While they may have agreed with its overall point, that the troop buildup has not worked, several Democratic officials said privately that the advertisement had been counterproductive.

...

Republicans have called on Democratic Congressional leaders and presidential candidates to disavow the advertisement, but they have largely declined.

Several officials said even though the text of in the advertisement might be over the top, public sentiment shared a frustration over the war. Officials said they did not want to play into the Republican Party’s hands or anger MoveOn members.

This is a case where the Democrats don't have a choice. If they do not denounce MoveOn the Democrats are playing into the Republican's hand and have been taking a pounding on it all week that is overriding their loser caucus message. It should also be noted, which the Times did not, that at least one senator said that they could not directly call the general a liar but that their supporters would, which suggest they were working together on the ad.

The groups decision to attack Giuliani is a gift to the Republican candidate. The only thing better for him would be to have Osama bin Laden attack him. They are throwing him into the brier patch where he plays best. It will be a badge of honor which he can use for the next year to demonstrate to Republican voters that he is the candidate that the worst of the Democrats fear the most.

The groups decision to join Democrats in a bad faith proposal to limit troop deployments is an unconstitutional attempt to strip executive power granted to the President as commander in chief. It is a total bad faith attempt to do indirectly what they do not have the courage to do directly and the President will win that fight too. It is a very foolish attempt that would tie the hands of a Democrat President too if he decided to send more troops to Afghanistan or Pakistan as Obama has proposed. In fact Obama appears to be promising to play the fools game of voting for the ridiculous proposal while also reposing to deploy more troops. He can't have it both ways in the real world.

Don Surber has more on MoveOn and the Dems.