Lapel Pin Reporting
Obama gets a little negative press, so the obvious answer is to find something to attack Clinton with, because that’s how this “game” is played.
Jeff Fecke at Shakesville makes a mild post about purported Clinton statements, Someone Says Something Sorta Silly, and the trolls come out of the woodwork to attack everyone and anyone who doesn’t forswear Clinton and bow down to Obama.
Since this involves MoveOn, you need to know my feelings about them, as stated in MOVE-ing ON. They are part of the Obama campaign, for all intents and purposes, so it will be difficult for Obama to distance himself from then as Kerry was forced to do in 2004. They ceased to be an independent agent on February 1st with their rushed move to endorse a candidate.
Jeff makes an error in his post, and assumes that MoveOn didn’t oppose the war in Afghanistan. From Wikipedia’s History of MoveOn.org
Anti-war organizing
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, MoveOn launched an online campaign calling for “justice, not escalating violence.” It collected 30,000 signers for a statement that argued: “To combat terrorism, we must act in accordance with a high standard that does not disregard the lives of people in other countries. If we retaliate by bombing Kabul and kill people oppressed by the Taliban dictatorship who have no part in deciding whether terrorists are harbored, we become like the terrorists we oppose. We perpetuate the cycle of retribution and recruit more terrorists by creating martyrs.” Eventually, this led to them working on behalf of Eli Pariser’s similar 9-11peace.org petition. Pariser later joined MoveOn currently serves as its executive director.
DaTruth at MyDD wondered about the question: Did Moveon.org oppose the Afghan War? While not happy with some of the sourcing, DaTruth concludes that the organization did.
If you take a little more time you can locate a post from Common Dreams, Grassroots Goes Global: Millions Drawn to Website Promoting Justice, about Eli Pariser, 9-11peace.org, and the opposition to the use of military force after 9/11.
The Rovian claim was that MoveOn, Pariser, et al. didn’t want to do anything about terrorism, which is not true. They didn’t want the US to go around blowing up people and things, when there were less violent, and more targeted options.
I would note that my own stated opinion is that you cannot combat terrorism from the cockpit of an aircraft or the turret of a tank. You have to use intelligence networks and investigation techniques to follow leads back to their sources.
7 comments
The Wikipedia item you quote is sourced to
York, Bryon. “Rove Was Right about MoveOn“, National Review, 2005-06-24. Retrieved on 2007-09-25.
I disbelieve.
Then why don’t you look at the Commonsense article which says essentially the same damn thing, or do your own bloody searching, because I was a member of MoveOn at the time and they were advocating a non-military approach, while Rove’s claim was they didn’t want to do anything.
I frankly couldn’t care less because they have already screwed up so thoroughly that they have lost the November election, and Florida isn’t even going to get a vote.
This is fully hashed out in the Byron York article on NRO which tries to make the exact same case you are making, but as you may note if you read it, MoveOn.org has been saying that this is a mischaracterization of their position — since 2005. A petition for restraint is not the same as opposition to the use of force in Afghanistan.
And I know you’re bitter about the Florida situation, and hope that gets resolved before the convention.
Rove’s comment:
MoveOn’s response:
The question I want asked re: that stoooopid lapel pin stuff….
“Where was your pin made and have you had it tested for lead levels?”
I think the whole lapel pin thing is a coded genteel way of calling Barack Obama unpatriotic. Nobody cares if John McCain wears a lapel pin. Nobody cares if Hillary Clinton wears a lapel pin. It’s just a right wing smear.
A lapel pin proves you have no concern for your clothes. All of the insignia you have to put on a military uniform really messes it up. The pins tear the fabric unless you have a cut button hole, and then they fray the button hole.
Most pins are made with pot-metal which will contain lead and other heavy metals that are pollutants. Red and White enamels almost always are lead-based. The things are toxic.
A flag pin is a pretty good indicator you didn’t serve in the military, or you would have some type of military pin to put there. It also indicates that you don’t belong to any service organizations, or you would have their pin on your lapel. So, essentially, if you have a flag pin on your lapel, you are probably a lazy, shiftless ne’er-do-well who has never amounted to much as a human being, but want to deflect the criticism.