New York Times Falsely Reports That Dems' Resolution Condemning Attacks On Military Didn't Mention MoveOn Ad
September 21, 2007 -- 10:39 AM EST // //

Yesterday Senator Barbara Boxer introduced a resolution condemning all political attacks on members of the military. It was submitted alongside the GOP resolution condemning MoveOn's attack on Mighty Scholar Warrior Petraeus -- Boxer's idea being that her companion measure would reveal the GOP's hypocrisy by showcasing their unwillingness to condemn political attacks on veterans like Max Cleland and John Kerry.

In its piece today on the Senate votes, The New York Times wrote that Boxer's resolution condemned all such attacks, but not MoveOn's Petraeus attack. The piece said:

Ms. Boxer’s proposal, which failed, called for the Senate to “strongly condemn all attacks on the honor, integrity and patriotism” of anyone in the United States armed forces. It did not mention the MoveOn.org ad.

So those hypocritical Dems wouldn't even condemn MoveOn's attack on Petraeus in a measure that purported to be condeming all attacks on members of U.S. military, right? This of course was the GOP's narrative of the week -- you know, Dems cowering in fear of the anti-military left. And this description implies equivalent hypocrisy -- that each party was equally selective in picking whom they were prepared to condemn.

The only problem with The Times's description of this, however, is that it's entirely false. Boxer's resolution did indeed condemn MoveOn's anti-Petraeus ad -- quite prominently, in fact.

You can find Boxer's resolution here, on the U.S. Senate's official Web site. Here's the relevant paragraph:

(6) On September 10, 2007, an advertisement in the New York Times was an unwarranted personal attack on General Petraeus; who is honorably leading our Armed Forces in Iraq and carrying out the mission assigned to him by the President of the United States; and

(7) Such personal attacks on those with distinguished military service to our nation have become all too frequent.

I'd say that paragraph counts as condemning the MoveOn ad, wouldn't you? Was there another ad in The Times that day hitting Petraeus that we all missed?

Unlike The Times, The Washington Post got this right today, reporting that while Boxer's resolution didn't use the word "MoveOn," it "criticized the MoveOn ad but also denounced Republicans for attacking the military record of Kerry in 2004 through the Swift boat ads."

By contrast, The Times either overlooked that paragraph in the reso entirely or used the fact that the reso didn't explicitly use the word "MoveOn" as the highly questionable basis for asserting that the reso "did not mention" the ad at all. Either way, the result was an outright falsehood that deserves a correction.

What happened here? Perhaps it was just plain old sloppy journalism. Or perhaps just typical media brainlock -- as in, Dems would never condemn MoveOn, so there's no way this resolution did so, either. Which is it? We report, you decide.

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