In his column last Sunday, Frank Rich smartly condemned the origins of the "Petraeus/Betray Us" controversy, a controversy that in the last few days has loomed larger than the war the ad was designed to attack:
"This left-wing brand of juvenile name-calling," he wrote, "is as witless as the 'Defeatocrats' and 'cut and run' McCarthyism from the right."
Why witless? Because, Rich continued, "it at once undermined the serious charges against the data in the Petraeus progress report (including those charges in the same MoveOn ad) and allowed the war's cheerleaders to hyperventilate about a sideshow."
It's true that not much is required from the left in terms of material for the right to hyperventilate about. It's also true that even in the absence of the left handing some sideshow material to the right, the latter is expert at creating this sort of stuff out of whole cloth. It's what they do. And they do it well. Nevertheless, the left doesn't need to make their job easier for them; and that's precisely what MoveOn.org did.
To their credit, MoveOn's management seems chastened: "In an e-mail to its members last night, the group acknowledged that the content of the ad might have angered its allies but argued that a larger issue is at stake. 'Maybe you liked our General Petraeus ad. Maybe you thought the language went too far,' they wrote. 'But make no mistake: this is much bigger than one ad.'"
Of course it is. On the other hand, of course it isn't. For when the theatrical reality of democracy's circus comes to town, it's the barkers in the driver's seat.
One would think MoveOn would have already known this, but if not, the organization learned it the hard way by yesterday, having "found itself under attack by not only President Bush, who said the ad was 'disgusting,' but also by the Democratic-controlled Senate, which passed a resolution 72 to 25 expressing its own outrage. Many Democrats blamed the group for giving moderate Republicans a ready excuse for staying with Bush and for giving Bush and his supporters a way to divert attention away from the war."
And there you have it. A three-ring circus, or at the very least, a sideshow within a sideshow. There was the president, finally able to reenergize his diminishing base by locating something "disgusting" outside his own actions; there were the congressional Republicans, doing, as mentioned, what they and their media allies do best -- expressing outrage; and, naturally, there were the spineless Democrats, who were handed a ready-made scapegoat they could call their own.
Has it been Democrats' antiwar mismanagement that has kept the door open for moderate Republicans to stay with Bush? Let's just say it's much easier to point the finger at MoveOn.org, and there's a good chance the gaping spectators will fall for it.
And let us not forget the traveling sideshows -- all those Republican presidential candidates and right-wing propaganda outfits that are now raking in the fundraising cash as a happy result of the Big Tent's glitzy distractions.
If MoveOn forgot any fundamental lesson about the circus of democratic politics, it is this: In a country mesmerized by the likes of O.J.'s witless activities and Britney Spears' witless choice of undergarments and a television network's witless selection of a witless successor to Rosie O'Donnell -- if that country can be mesmerized by those non-events in a time of eventful war -- then witless sideshows are indeed what it's all about.
They'll trump the real show every time, and MoveOn is just now learning how counterproductive opening the tent door can be. So do us a favor, MoveOn, and take Frank Rich's advice: Dump the ad hominems and stick to the facts, no matter how devotedly the democrats in this faltering Democracy choose to ignore them. If we in the right must suffer at the witless doings of those on the right, let's do it with some nobility.
And that, gentle reader, is my hypocrisy for the day, having committed MoveOn's sin many, many times myself.