Those things are just not comparable.
All 'character assassination' is not created equal, eh?
Why would it be? Coulter is a humorist who made a joke about someone's masculinity. That person happened to be a
lawyer publicity whore, posing as a presidential candidate. The Swift Boaters were criticizing the military record and character of a Senator and presidential candidate.
Whatever you may think of these things, they're just not the same situation. Neither Kerry nor Edwards were commanding troops in Iraq. Their detractors were not hampering our progress in Iraq by a) distracting from the real issue with baseless questions about the messenger's credibility or b) impugning a top military commander before the world.
Did anyone here say he was?
When you start equating treating a political individual as part of the political process: yes.
The anger stems from the transparency of the Dem's in judging Petraeus and his report well beforehand, then attacking him rather than actually trying to deal with the real issues in Iraq.
Except that we all do this, continually. We correctly discount the words of anyone with a vested interest - be they a party that stands to profit from a particular outcome, or someone for whom an ideological goal has been set (and thus results may be 'tweaked' to fit a desired outcome). That's all Reid and other Congressional Democrats have done: pointed out that Petraeus's loyalties don't necessarily lie with telling Congress the reality of the situation, but with justifying both Bush & Co plans and his previous statements on the matter.
No. There is large difference between being wary of bias or ideology, and using the excuse of bias to dismiss any point of view with which one does not agree. Everyone has a bias, unfortunately, and every thinking person has some sort of ideology.
They have to do this because, as illustrated in the WSJ and here, a general's words are treated as absolute fact in the media and by most individuals, who don't want to believe that military leaders are political animals.
What universe do you call home?
And, of course, conflating MoveOn with the Congressional leadership is absurd - these are not sects that happily work together or represent the same viewpoints.
Did I do that? How about Senator Ted Kennedy's pronouncement that Petraeus was only coming to Washington to say that Petraeus was doing a good job? Or Representative Lantos's statement that Petraeus had only come to declare victory? As I said, pre-judging the report.
