Reactions to ad were absurd, but ad was indeed a disservice

OK, I blasted Sen. John Cornyn’s ridiculous introduction of a Senate resolution on MoveOn’s ad. Rudy was sinking in the polls so he thought he better take out his own New York Times ad and blast Hillary as well as MoveOn.

And, of course, we now are seeing ads from the “war at any cost” crowd, Freedom Watch, capitalizing on the MoveOn ad.

The pro-war cabal wants nothing more than to shift the focus to MoveOn.

But here’s the rub. It works.

I remember well going into a TV interview during the impeachment days with one of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” theorists who “reported” for Richard Mellon Scaife. His revelation: Hillary and Bill Clinton had murdered Vince Foster. My response: Yeah, and I came up in the elevator with Elvis. The off-the-wall crowd gave us a big opening during the Clinton impeachment debacle. And the American people sided with us.

The point I am making is that MoveOn violated elementary rules of both common sense and political sense. Go after Bush and Petraeus on this war. Fine. Hit them hard on the failure and the lack of a plan. Fine. But that ad was a bonehead move. A costly bonehead move.

This is the over-the-top crowd when they do ads like that — and, unfortunately, these kinds of ads aren’t new for them. During the 2004 campaign, many of us dreaded another salvo from MoveOn’s amateurish ad makers. Great for fundraising, lousy politics. A Bush media consultant confided to me that nearly every time MoveOn put out one of their print ads, a cheer went up at Bush headquarters.

I think it is time that MoveOn brought in some ad makers with a bit of political and common sense. Otherwise, we will be discussing them instead of the substance of this administration’s totally misguided policy.