Trashing Petraeus

UPDATE: Peter D. Feaver, Boston Globe on the McCarthyist tactics of MoveOn and the Democrat leadership:

The attack was part of an elaborate effort to undermine public support for the Iraq war, and was foreshadowed by an unnamed Democratic senator who told a reporter, "No one wants to call [Petraeus] a liar on national TV . . . The expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us." The effort is funded by powerful special interests, and has all the trappings of a major political campaign.

Could it have been Dick Durbin, who compared our troops to Nazis?

WSJ:
Important as was yesterday's appearance before Congress by General David Petraeus, the events leading up to his testimony may have been more significant. Members of the Democratic leadership and their supporters have now normalized the practice of accusing their opponents of lying. If other members of the Democratic Party don't move quickly to repudiate this turn, the ability of the U.S. political system to function will be impaired in a way no one would wish for.

Well, with one exception. MoveOn.org, the Democratic activist group, bought space in the New York Times yesterday to accuse General Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House." The ad transmutes the general's name into "General Betray Us." [snip]

Can this really be the new standard of political rhetoric across the Democratic Party? There was a time when the party's institutional elites, such as the Times, would have pulled it back from reducing politics to all or nothing. They would have blown the whistle on such accusations. Now they are leading the charge.

Under these new terms, public policy is no longer subject to debate, discussion and disagreement over competing views and interpretations. Instead, the opposition is reduced to the status of liar. Now the opposition is not merely wrong, but lacks legitimacy and political standing. The goal here is not to debate, but to destroy.

UPDATE: Dan Proft:

The MoveOn.org ad was the culmination of a weeks-long campaign by the professional bedwetters in this country and their mouthpieces like Illinois' Dick Durbin to mau-mau Petraeus and his congressional testimony before he ever provided it.

Benedict Arnold. Robert Hanssen. Aldrich Ames. General David Petraeus.

It used to be that you actually had to commit a seditious act to be cast as a traitor, at least among people who pretend to be serious about such matters.

Full text here.