Moveon.org hits the bottom

General Petraeus is now testifying before the House, providing his assessment of the situation in Iraq and making recommendations as to how to proceed. Here is his written testimony.
This morning, the leftist group Moveon.org ran an ad in the New York Times that accused Petraeus of betraying his country. The ad was called “General Petraeus or General Betray us? Cooking the books for the White House.” In the view of Moveon.org, General Petraeus betrays his country by not sharing that organization’s gloomy assessment of the situation in Iraq. Yet Petraeus’s view that we have made substanial progress is shared by liberal observers such as Michael O’Hanlon and even by an anti-war Congressman who recently visited Iraq. But even in the absence of this kind of testimony by liberals, Moveon.org’s claim that Petraeus has betrayed his country by disputing the left’s narrative on Iraq is disgraceful. You can find a list of the general’s decorations here at NRO’s The Tank.
On Friday, the Poltico quoted a Democratic Senator as saying, “‘No one wants to call [Petraeus] a liar on national TV. The expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us.” Yet I wonder whether even this Democrat expected Moveon.org to attack Petraeus so crudely. To many congressional Democrats, the latest ad will confirm Rep. David Obey’s view that the anti-war left is dominated by “liberal idiots.”
But, whatever the expectations of the congressional Dems, Moveon.org has accused a distinguished patriot, approved unanimously by the Senate to lead our war effort in Iraq, of betraying his country. How many Democrats will condemn Moveon.org for this? How many will even dispute its slanderous contention?
UPDATE: General Petraeus has told Congress that because the surge has been so successful, he recommends a drawdown of 25 percent of the combat brigades in Iraq by next summer, with further reductions expected after that. It will be interesting to see how the Democrats respond to this, given that the political ground relating to the war may have just shifted rather dramatically.
JOHN adds: A general who “betrays us” is a traitor, like Benedict Arnold. Now that it’s OK to question people’s patriotism, can we start with MoveOn?
UPDATE by JOHN: We’ve been working and unable to watch today’s hearing, but Michelle Malkin has been live-blogging it. It sounds as though the Democrats and their supporters in the gallery are coming off as clowns. And we won’t get to Joe Biden until tomorrow!