Batiste Lays With Dogs, Gets Fleas

Sunday’s New York Times features former Army Major General John Batiste’s reasoning for appearing in a TV ad the NYT’s describes as “openly challenging President Bush on his management of the war.” The ad says:

“Mr. President, you did not listen,” General Batiste says in new television advertisements being broadcast in Republican Congressional districts as part of a $500,000 campaign financed by VoteVets.org. “You continue to pursue a failed strategy that is breaking our great Army and Marine Corps. I left the Army in protest in order to speak out. Mr. President, you have placed our nation in peril. Our only hope is that Congress will act now to protect our fighting men and women.”

The NYT’s comments: “Those are powerful, inflammatory words from General Batiste.”

Batiste tells the NYT’s:

General Batiste said he chose to go public with his critique of the war effort only after 30 years of honoring the Army’s rules of silence. He said it was that time commanding 22,000 troops in combat, in 2004 and 2005, that convinced him that American fighting in Iraq was short of vision as well as troops.
“There was never enough. There was never a reserve,” he said. “Again and again, we had to move troops by as many as 200 miles out of our area of operations to support another sector. We would pull troops out of contact with the enemy and move them into contact with the enemy somewhere else. The minute we’d leave, the insurgents would pick up on that, and kill everybody who had been friendly.”
General Batiste was among a handful of retired generals first calling last year for the resignation of Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary. He says he realizes lending his name to television advertisements aimed at the president and Republican members of Congress in an election cycle is different.

It’s far more than “different.” General Batiste has chosen to align himself with the very organizations and people who do not believe or are unwilling to support efforts to counter the very threat that Batiste says is primary.

As described by General Batiste, the message is not antiwar; it argues that continuing the war in Iraq as a civil, sectarian conflict that cannot be won by outside forces is crippling the Army and the Marine Corps. It does not deny the danger of violent Islamic extremism, he says, but contends that the war in Iraq prevents the armed services from preparing to battle other global security threats.
And it says that if terrorism, and especially terrorists armed with unconventional weapons, truly threaten America’s very survival, then the rest of the country — not just the military — should be called to sacrifice.

Of course, the New York Times doesn't explore the groups that Batiste has chosen as meriting his advocacy.

VoteVets.org is a front group for the Democratic Party, and cooperates with MoveOn.org in its anti-Iraq war efforts. VoteVets.org Chair Jon Stoltz worked for John Kerry in 2004.
As MSNBC reports:

The VoteVets advisory board includes Democratic National Committee member and former Al Gore adviser Elaine Kamarck and Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic House candidate in Illinois last year.
The ad campaign is being paid for by the VoteVets 501(c)(4), but the group also has a political action committee, which in last year's election targeted Republicans, spending, for example, $45,000 to defeat Sen. George Allen of Virginia.

MSNBC says the source of funding for VoteVets.org can’t be ascertained because “One alluring feature of using these tax-exempt groups is that - unlike campaign committees - the donations to a 501(c)(4) are anonymous and unlimited in amount. A single donor could, under cover of the 501(c)(4)'s anonymity, give $20 million or $200 million to pay for political ads.”

Stoltz claims his VoteVets is a 501(c)(4), the IRS code section for a tax-exempt organization "primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good and general welfare of the community." MSNBC quotes the VoteVets saying its 501(c)(4) "primarily focuses on nonpartisan education and advocacy on behalf of troops, veterans and their families." But, as MSNBC points out, all of its targeted Senators and Congressmen are Republicans, while ignoring Democrats who opposed the Democrats’ cut-and-run votes. “The group chose not to target these Democrats.”

As Politico reported, VoteVets.org is cooperating with MoveOn.org in funding an Oliver Stone hit ad against Republican supporters of the Iraq involvement.

It was announced as liberal opponents of the Iraq war stepped up attacks on Republican congressional lawmakers who voted against a timeline for redeploying troops with letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations and, this week, the launch of new TV ads.
A broad coalition of war opponents spent the congressional recess rousing the locals in dozens of Republican swing districts in 24 states.

As I traced in a series of posts (the latest here, with links to its predecessors) the roots of VoteVets.org lays in a joint effort by extreme Left blogger Kos and Democrat Chair Howard Dean.

In the 2006 elections, FactCheck called the VoteVets ad “a nasty tactic” and that VoteVets.org chair “Soltz simply misstates history.”

Not only is VoteVets.org a Democrat Party front, but is deeply enmeshed with the most radical fringes of the Democrat Party. And, its sham 501(c)(4) claim is an abuse of tax-exempt status.

Batiste, despite protestations, is either a liar or a fool. But, there’s little doubt that he has voluntarily chosen to lay down with dogs, and that he gets up with fleas.

UPDATE: Steve Bainbridge may be a professor of corporate law but his practical experience in that area lags behind his with wine. Over the years I’ve had friendly correspondence with him from my many years of practical experience in corporate finance and operations management to add to his understanding. However, when it comes to Iraq and war, our views have markedly differed, but he has no practical experience with those subjects. He has chosen to malign me as attacking any military veteran disagreeing with President Bush. Perhaps, if he actually read what I wrote he would see that I gave full expression to Batiste’s view, without negative comment. It is the associations that Batiste has chosen, with those who in effect oppose any defense whenever it practically comes down to it, and do so with a Leftist domestic political agenda, that I criticize. Thirty-one years of Army experience are no excuse for his behavior, indeed with those who oppose even his own expressed views in favor of a “surge” and recognizing the existential threat from extremist jihadism, and bring into question his judgment and integrity. Bainbridge should more carefully drink his wine, rather than spit it at others. Bainbridge's judgment and integrity also suffer.