I'm sick and tired of hearing about that MoveOn ad. It's gotten far more attention than it ever deserved. Not because it criticized a member of the armed forces—those guys are tough; he could take it—but because it was a stupid ad.
Any comedy writer would recognize it as a cheap shot, a close relation of the cheap laugh.
Just because Gen. Patraeus's name happens to rhyme with "betray us" is no reason to use that rhyme in what otherwise would be valid criticism. Because betrayal is not what Patraeus was primarily up to when he testified before Congress. Ass kissing, yes, but that doesn't rhyme. Brown nosing, maybe, but again, that's more easily portrayed in cartoons than in one-line ad copy. And selective reporting—well, that's so commonplace from the military press office it's hardly worth buying an ad to announce it.
If Patraeus was guilty of betrayal, then so are a lot of gung-ho generals—a trait that previously got them promoted. So were a handful of presidents I could name, starting with Kennedy. Do we really want to go down that road? Who gets to decide which leadership style constitutes betrayal, with the insidiousness and deliberateness that implies, and which is merely stupid or uninformed?
Not an advertising copywriter I hope.
But anyway, the ad was hardly worthy of the air time it's received. Yesterday I had to turn off the Sunday talk shows, which I finally had a chance to watch. (They come on in the afternoon here, when I'm usually cooking a big Sunday meal.) Health care? Who cares? Deaths in Iraq? Done that. Blackwater mercenaries, who incidentally earn far more than Gen. Patraeus, involved in senseless killing? BORE-ing.
It left me in a bad, bad mood. How on earth is our next president going to accomplish anything with a bunch of senators who can only come together to pass a bill condemning a stupid ad?
When a presidential candidate's worth is judged by both sides by how he or she voted on the most important issue of the day, condemning or supporting an ad, we're truly in trouble. And when presidential candidates imply that they would support a law banning speech that criticizes military members (who, um, give their lives to protect our constitution with its freedom of speech amendment), we've surely been betrayed. Not by MoveOn, not by overly eager generals, but by the Echo Chamber, who solemnly debate a two-week old newspaper ad yet ignore a forest of burning trees.
There's a cheap laugh in there somewhere.
