I agree with EE on this one. Moveon wants to blackmail every democratic candidate, it's a disagrace.

"Someone who's spent their life in the military doesn't deserve 'General Betray Us,'" said Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.

Oh no.  What an outrageous, controversial statement from Elizabeth Edwards.  By which I mean, yawn.

The Edwards campaign does a disservice to our party by engaging in what I regard as the most dishonest campaign any Democrat has run since Bush was elected.

Are you accusing Al Gore of running a dishonest campaign?  Cause, uh, I hope you know he's the Democrat who was running when Bush was elected.

Elizabeth Edwards is right . That ad was bizarre and not well thought through .

MoveOn could have made their point without calling names. Elizabeth is being completely consistent on this point.

Here's what I posted on dkos about the ad:

The ad was dumb. It completely missed the mark
because it called into question the honor of an active general instead of focusing on the president.  Now we are all sitting around talking about MoveOn instead of the president's failed policy.  Still, it's a free country.  They have a right to make whatever ad they want to.

I don't blame anyone for dissing the ad.

No candidate should be in a lockstep with moveon and take their marching order, period.

I'm not too happy about the MoveOn ad too and I'm even mad at my candidate, Hillary Clinton, for not completely denouncing the ad.

MoveOn set us back during that Iraq Progress Report hearings.

I cancelled my moveon funding/support when they turned their backs on democrats and tried blackmailing them. Wrote them a scathing letter as well, not that i think that made much difference.

The Edwards' will do or say anything to win the White House.  It's like the story about Kerry and Edwards telling him he had "never told a soul this story before" about his son and not only had he told Kerry the story before but Kerry had heard others talk about him telling it.  John Edwards will use anything to score political points. He also told Kerry he would not run for President in 2008- the man is dishonest and you can't believe one word that comes out of his mouth.  Luckily, most Democrats have not been fooled by this hypocrite and he's in a dismal third place and has absolutely no chance of winning the nomination.  Come Feb., I have no doubt his concern for "poverty" is going to evaporate like water on hot concrete in the Arizona sun and he will be working for a hedge fund again within the year.

I completely disagree with alipi and most of the commenters. I think the MoveOn ad, although factually accurate once you get beyond the headline, was stupid in that it made itself too easy a target. Actually the headline is accurate too, but notice that they say at the bottom, "General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us." Even though most of what he was going to say was well known before the hearing, I think Jon Stewart's segment after the hearing was much more effective. He showed clips of the General saying that what he has to say is all his own, and then shows numerous clips where he can be seen to be echoing Bush's words, often literally.

Elizabeth was right to criticize the ad. Furthermore I couldn't disagree more about Edward's statements. To me he comes off as the most genuine of the candidates. He has made poverty his issue, not exactly the one to choose if he was just trying to score points. Groups ranking the candidates consistently show him as the most liberal candidate, and he has many times been the only candidate to say what needs to be said, making him the leader on many issues both Obama and especially Clinton have kept shamefully quiet.

My take... one friend liked it as he thought it was a catchy word play, another friend thought it anti-military and I just thought it was silly and didn't help anything.

yawn another anti-Edwards diary by someone who can't get their facts straight

I'd spend the time correcting everything wrong in the 5 almost paragraphs, but even insomniacs get tired.