Quick Announcment

I'll be on 4802 tonight, 7:30 pm.

That's Pittsburgh public television, by the way.

UPDATE:

Proof!

Pintek, Petraeus, and Moveon.org.

This is the followup for this posting from last night. It's a little complicated. Bear with me, I'll get it all in. Mike Pintek, political conservative, spoke with in-house WPXI/PCNC political analyst Bill Green (another political conservative - a great idea if you want just one position discussed) about an ad that moveon.org placed in the New York Times. The ad was about General Petreaus and what he might or might not say to Congress yesterday.

Pintek could have been discussing the testimony, but he chose instead to focus on an ad.

Ok. Let's start with the ad that Pintek found so offensive. Here's the text:

Cooking the books for the White House

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was "tangible progress" in Iraq and that "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward." And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of the troops in Iraq, said "We say we have achieved progress and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress."

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That's because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don't count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you're shot in the back of the head - not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the last three months than in any other summer we've been there. We'll hear of neighborhoods where violence is decreased. But we won't hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petreaus won't admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won't hear what Americans are desparate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petreaus has actually said that American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petreaus is likely to become General Betray Us.

Ok, so they got a bit snarky at the end and if you head over to their webpage, you'll see all the actual confirming evidence supporting their position. Not that it would have mattered to Pintek. The ad was enough to send him off the rails completely. He spun like a music-box ballerina throughout the segment. And I'm surprised that all that spinning didn't create a wind strong enough to push Bill Green out of his chair.

He declared, with no evidence, that moveon.org was speaking for the Democratic party. He said that it's a:

very left wing organization, ostensibly representing the Democratic party. I think that's the impression they wanted to leave.

I am so glad Mike went with "Democratic party" instead of the infantile "Democrat party." Good for him.

But look, he "thinks" that's the impression moveon wanted to leave. But for the rest of the segment, moveon was speaking for all Democrats - well to Mike, at least. It's his way to pin an ad by an organization of 3.3 million people onto a major political party of 72 million people.

The spinning continued. He dragged Congressman Altmire's office into the act, too. Mike had Altmire on Night Talk sometime ago. The Congressman had just returned from Iraq and had met General Petreaus. Pintek said Almire was "very impressed" with the General and that while the situation there "wasn't perfect" there had been "progress in Iraq."

He wanted to get the Congressman's reaction to the ad. So he called the office and got a call back from the Congressman's spokeswoman. Here's what he said then:

This is to be attributed to her, but it comes from Congressman Altmire's office. This is in essense what it says. He says moveon.org has crossed the line of appropriate political discourse with this ad. It's offensive and misleading and does not help those who are trying to come to a timely resolution to the situation in Iraq.[emphasis added]

He said a few seconds later that Congressman Altmire was the "only democrat that I've heard today to condemn the ad."

Note the spin. The thing from the phone conversation was attributed to the Congressman's spokeswoman but Mike does his best to pin it (again with no evidence) on the Congressman himself.

Par for the course, I guess.

By the way, here's the statement from the Congressman about General Petreaus testimony:

After my meeting with Gen. Petraeus in Baghdad two weeks ago, I was confident that he would recommend a drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq. In his statement today, Gen. Petraeus did mention the possibility of a small drawdown; however, I am disappointed that the majority of such a drawdown would not begin for several months and that, one year from now, we will remain at pre-surge levels with no end in sight. A policy that maintains our military presence in Iraq at pre-surge levels—basically a stay the course policy—is in stark contrast to nearly every other recent report on Iraq, including last week's independent reports issued by the GAO and Gen. Jones.

I can see why Mike Pintek wouldn't want to discuss that.

Jason Altmire in Time Magazine

Time Magazine's got a short piece on Congressman Altmire. It begins with a conundrum for the Congressman:

"Can't we please stop the war?" Eugene Gabriel implored Congressman Jason Altmire, shouting over a singer belting out Beyoncé's Listen at the annual New Castle fireworks festival in western Pennsylvania. "That's what I wrote on my donation envelopes to you, both times, $200 a pop."

The freshman Democrat leaned into Gabriel's ear to make sure his response was heard: "We tried, but [President George W.] Bush vetoed it." The Democratic strategy, Altmire explained, was to keep the pressure up by continuing to schedule votes on Iraq and hope "that more Republicans will go to the White House and say, 'We can't do this anymore.'" The reply didn't quite mollify Gabriel, 49, a financial adviser who calls himself pro-life, pro-gun but antiwar. His son Michael, 22, is in the National Guard in neighboring Ohio; half of his division is expected to be deployed to Iraq in 2008.

Two hundred feet and 20 minutes later, having weaved his way farther into the crowd, Altmire faced another question about "the mess in Iraq," this time from William Proch, 71, a retired steelworker. But when Altmire again mentioned Bush's veto, Proch grew angry, accusing Altmire of being "in lockstep with [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi, putting our troops in danger." The lifelong Republican voted for Altmire in 2006 after GOP ethics scandals left him wanting a fresh face. But because he also wants more troops in Iraq, not fewer, Proch is feeling buyer's remorse.

By the end of the piece he is by one constituent accused of being a rubberstamp for Bush and by another a rubberstamp for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The writer, Jay Newton-Small, points out the demographics of the district:

Altmire's district stretches west from the Pittsburgh suburbs to the Ohio border. In 2006 he wrested the congressional seat from three-term incumbent Melissa Hart with just 52% of the vote. The district should vote solidly Republican; on the same ballot, former Steelers football star Lynn Swann, the Republican challenger to Governor Ed Rendell, won by more than 20 percentage points. But the time was right for Altmire, a pro-gun fiscal conservative whose sandy hair, hazel eyes and freckles make him look far younger than his 39 years.

The narrow win--by just 9,798 votes--has made Altmire a top target of Republicans. Swann briefly flirted with the idea of challenging Altmire but announced last week he would not, opening the door for a rematch with Hart, who told local papers this month she plans to run again.

Though I'm not sure I'd agree with the assertion that the district "should vote solidly Republican." Last week I heard Bill Green (WPXI Political Analyst extraordinaire) say on NightTalk that the district was more Democratic than Republican (he pointed out that it was Ron Klink's old seat).

Coincidentally, Green did say that he thought that the seat would remain Altmire's after the 2008 election. He also said he didn't think it was a good idea for Melissa Hart to get into the race.

Bill Green said that.