George Lakoff has a great article on Common Dreams about how effective the MoveOn ad was.

Not sure why you say ESPECIALLY the Mahdi Army. Muqtada Sadr and the Mahdi Army are nationalists, and the one major Shi`a group in Iraq who are not affiliated with Iran. Muqtada is, if anything, anti-Iran.

Also, the Mahdi Army have been “going after” – i.e. resisting – your troops from the beginning, and rightly so. As Iraqi nationalists, they have no obligation to accept being occupied by a foreign power bent on turning their country into a dependent, useful client state.

Bush’s only option to end the massacre would be to go nuclear, but I wonder if the Pentagon would allow him to launch? After all, considerable numbers of American troops would be detrimentally affected by any nuclear attack on Iran, and such an attack would bring down the world on us. Bush and Cheney may not appreciate the catastrophe they would be uncorking by going to war with Iran, but certainly others still in the government do — even star-chasers like Petraeus.

Out beyond the beltway, I don’t think Petraeus has any more credibility than Powell now has. Bush was trying to convince GOP pols in Washington to keep us in Iraq; he may have succeeded, but the damage done to the Republican Party elsewhere in the country will be devastating — I think 2008 will be a landslide for the Dems no matter who their presidential candidate is, and no matter what GOP candidate is nominated. This is a turning point election, just like 1932.

What’s that old saying? When one’s enemy is destroying himself, don’t get in his way? (It’s something like that.)

MoveOn has butted in and made itself the hot topic … it gave a talking point to the Republicans. And it hit on a military man, which is a high-risk move because even if most Americans detest Bush and the Iraq war, they have a huge soft spot for our military.

If MoveOn had just stuck to the facts, not trying to smear Petraeus, the Republicans wouldn’t have had a comeback. And now even the Democrats are fighting with each other over it. To wit:
http://www.memeorandum.com/070915/p57#a070915p57

That quote is urban legend.

Check out the Snopes debunking.

It was a satire piece written by Michael Kinsley.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/kinsley.asp

-GSD

0 = Number of times Bush said the word “victory” in his speech last night, despite the fact that “for more than four years since the invasion of Iraq, President Bush most often has defined his objective there with a single, stirring word: ‘Victory.’” [LA Times, 9/14/07]
6 = Number of times he mentioned “progress”, despite independent assessments that show little to no political progress
5 = Number of slogans created by the Bush Administration to mark a new strategy and phase in the war (“Mission Accomplished,” “Stand Up, Stand Down,” “Plan for Victory,” “New Way Forward,” “Return on Success”)

12 = Number of times the President mentioned “success”/ “succeed” last night
0 = Number of times Ambassador Crocker guaranteed success in his Iraq testimony: “‘I cannot guarantee success in Iraq…The challenges. . . are immense.’” [LA Times, 9/14/07]
5 = Number of times the President mentioned “strategy” last night
0 = Number of new strategies President Bush offered last night

5,700 = Number of U.S. forces coming home by the end of the year
3.5% = Percentage of U.S. forces in Iraq that will be returning home by the end of the year
130,000 = Number of troops that will remain in Iraq indefinitely

15 = Number of benchmarks the independent GAO report said the Iraq government failed to meet
1 = Number of benchmarks moved into the ‘satisfactory’ column between July 15 and September 15 (out of 18 total benchmarks) by the optimistic Bush report, 9 are still deemed as not satisfactory

36 = Number of nations President Bush said last night have troops on the ground in Iraq
25 = Actual number of nations with troops on the ground, according to the State Department
7% = Percentage of international forces in Iraq, compared to U.S. forces

12 = Number of times al-Qaeda was mentioned by President Bush
0 = Number of times General Petraeus said in his testimony that al-Qaeda is the primary threat in Iraq
3775 = Number of American casualties that Minority Leader Boehner said is a “small price to pay” in Iraq