While General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker moved to the Senate to field questions, there was an interesting start to the day on the floor of the Senate.  After the opening prayer and comments from Harry Reid, Texas Senator John Cornyn took to the floor to offer an amendment to the Transportation and Housing bill currently being debated.

It was a simple amendment, one that wouldn't cost any money, and relatively speaking, wouldn't cost much time.  It was a simple request that a sense of the Senate be taken to reaffirm support for the credibility of General Petraeus, and denounce as a body the despicable MoveOn.org full-page ad that ran in the New York Times essentially calling the General a traitor. 

At the end of his presentation, in walked Kentucky Senator and Republican leader, Mitch McConnell. Here's what he had to say.



Washington Democrat Patty Murray was managing the time on the transportation bill for the majority, and at this point, she knew she had a problem.  The last thing she wanted to do today was have the Democrats be put on record as either endorsing or rejecting MoveOn.org's ad.  The Democrats know they overreached, but you don't want to go out of your way to upset the money people.  So she called in reinforcements in the person of Illinois Senator and majority whip, Dick Durbin.  Here's a portion of his remarks in defense of the attempt to quash the Cornyn amendment.




Refreshingly, to Durbin's credit, he did say he doesn't agree with the characterization of General Petraeus by MoveOn.org a few times in here.  This, of course, coming from the same Senator who compared our troops at Abu Ghraib to the Nazis, Pol Pot and the Soviet gulags. 

But then the weasely lawyer side of Durbin kicked in. As a defense to why the Senate shouldn't be in the business of weighing in when a political organization steps in it, he compares the actions of MoveOn.org over the weekend in the New York Times to that of the Swift Boat Vets when they attacked the record of John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, a ridiculous comparison to try and make.

The Swifties, themselves vets that served in Vietnam, went after claims made by politician and candidate John Kerry.  That's certainly their prerogative. But I do not believe they were major donors to all quarters in the Republican Party, the way MoveOn.org has spent money on Democratic candidates at all levels of government.  The Swifties didn't like John Kerry, and their mission was to defeat John Kerry for president, a mission that was accomplished.

Durbin decried that no Republican Senator weighed in during the attack on Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign as a defense why the Democrats shouldn't be required to vote today to renounce MoveOn.org.  Does he not see the difference between fellow vets going after a political candidate, and an organization that has claimed they own the Democratic Party, they've bought it, that has not attacked a political candidate, but slandered the top General in Iraq as a traitor, a General that was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to implement the very plan that he is now reporting on?  General Petraeus is not running for office.  He's conducting a war.  John Kerry wanted to be president. 

There is no comparison to make.  MoveOn.org's ad is reprehensible, and beside the Durbin slap on the wrist, there has been no Senator that has dared to call them onto the carpet for what they did to General Petraeus.  In fact, the Democrats went through the motion of asking the chair to rule on the germaneness of Cornyn's resolution as a way of protecting the Democrats from having to put on record a vote on MoveOn.org.  Naturally, one of the beneficiaries of MoveOn money, Jon Tester in Montana, sat in the chair, and without reservation, ruled the Cornyn amendment dead because is was not germane.  According tothis Congressional Quarterly report, Jon Tester had received at least $88,000 dollars of MoveOn.org money in his successful bid to unseat Conrad Burns.

Look for the Republicans to bring this back up repeatedly, as the Democrats struggle to continue taking MoveOn cash, but pretend they have no influence with the Democratic Party.