House overwhelmingly condemns MoveOn ad

The House on Wednesday passed by a wide margin a resolution that condemns an ad from liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org that referred to Gen. David Petraeus as “General Betray Us.”

{mosads}Republican leaders had been calling for congressional action since the ad first ran in The New York Times ahead of Petraeus’s testimony on the situation in Iraq. The requests for action in the House grew louder after the Senate approved a similar measure with broad bipartisan consensus.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) hailed the outcome of the 341-79 vote and praised GOP lawmakers for taking the lead on the issue.

“Because the leaders of the current majority had refused to allow a vote on this important resolution, House Republicans took action to force an up-or-down vote today,” Boehner said. “General Petraeus and the men and women of our armed forces deserve our strongest support, and while the measure passed with significant bipartisan support, it is troubling that so many Democrats still voted to condone this attack defaming the general.”

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) called the MoveOn ad an insult “to the thousands of men and women in uniform [Petraeus] directs and the mission and objectives to which they are committed.”

In response to the vote, the executive director of MoveOn.org’s Political Action Committee, Eli Pariser, said the group would continue its “ad campaign to accuse the Republicans who are blocking an end to the war of a ‘Betrayal of Trust.’”

Pariser noted that U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians lose their lives every day and “with every passing day, more information comes to light casting more and more doubt on the validity of the facts and conclusions presented by General Petraeus in his testimony before Congress.”

Pariser strongly criticized Congress for “fiddling with an ad while Iraq burns.”

“It is unconscionable and outrageous that instead of doing the people’s work and ending this war, Congress chooses meaningless and distracting gestures,” he said.

The resolution states that the House “condemns in the strongest possible terms the personal attacks made by the advocacy group MoveOn.org impugning the integrity and professionalism of General David H. Petraeus.”

Several Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) voiced their objection to the ad, which has triggered calls for a congressional investigation on whether The New York Times violated campaign-finance laws by giving MoveOn.org a discounted ad rate.

While House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) voted in favor of the measure, several top Democrats did not.

Among the Democrats voting against the nomination were Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (Calif.), Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (Calif.), Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (Mass.), Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (N.Y.), Small Business Committee Chairman Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Filner (Calif.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

In addition, most vulnerable Democrats — other than Rep. John Yarmuth (Ky.) — supported the measure.