WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.299 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are setting 00:00:02.299 --> 00:00:06.620 the coordinates for a very specific and incredibly 00:00:06.620 --> 00:00:09.220 heated moment in recent history. We're going 00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:13.099 to September 10th, 2007. Right. The Iraq War 00:00:13.099 --> 00:00:15.839 is at an absolute fever pitch. The country is 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:17.940 completely divided. The Bush administration is, 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.160 you know, feeling the pressure and the whole 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:24.269 atmosphere is just... It was a powder keg. And 00:00:24.269 --> 00:00:27.230 then a single full page ad appears in the New 00:00:27.230 --> 00:00:29.769 York Times. And it basically lights the match. 00:00:29.969 --> 00:00:32.969 We are talking about the infamous General Betrayus 00:00:32.969 --> 00:00:36.009 ad. General Betrayus or General Betrayus. That 00:00:36.009 --> 00:00:37.789 was the headline. Imagine seeing that staring 00:00:37.789 --> 00:00:39.850 back at you over your morning coffee. It's a 00:00:39.850 --> 00:00:43.590 pun that has gone down in political infamy. We're 00:00:43.590 --> 00:00:45.729 not just here to look at a clever rhyme. Or maybe 00:00:45.729 --> 00:00:47.649 not so clever, depending on your view. Exactly. 00:00:47.649 --> 00:00:49.710 We've got a whole stack of material here, contemporary 00:00:49.710 --> 00:00:51.969 news reports, legislative records, fact checks, 00:00:52.030 --> 00:00:54.850 to really unpack what happened. We want to understand 00:00:54.850 --> 00:00:57.530 how a print ad could target the commander of 00:00:57.530 --> 00:01:00.890 U .S. forces, General David Petraeus, right as 00:01:00.890 --> 00:01:02.770 he was about to give a pivotal report to Congress. 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:05.599 It's a perfect case study for us. It sits right 00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:09.859 at that intersection of military reporting, media 00:01:09.859 --> 00:01:13.719 ethics, and really the weaponization of outrage. 00:01:14.099 --> 00:01:17.299 And the timeline is just wild. It goes from a 00:01:17.299 --> 00:01:20.540 newspaper ad to a full -blown Senate condemnation. 00:01:20.579 --> 00:01:22.659 Then a pricing scandal at the Times itself, a 00:01:22.659 --> 00:01:25.260 huge fundraising windfall. And then years later, 00:01:25.379 --> 00:01:29.810 this very quiet, almost... Orwellian scrubbing 00:01:29.810 --> 00:01:32.030 of it from history. It's the complete lifecycle 00:01:32.030 --> 00:01:34.290 of a political stunt. So let's set the scene. 00:01:34.489 --> 00:01:37.430 September 2007. Why was the tension so high? 00:01:37.609 --> 00:01:41.010 Why did this specific ad cause such a meltdown? 00:01:41.170 --> 00:01:43.349 You have to remember the context of the surge. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:45.719 The Bush administration had sent, what, about 00:01:45.719 --> 00:01:48.239 30 ,000 more troops into Iraq? Right, to try 00:01:48.239 --> 00:01:50.459 and stop the sectarian violence that was just 00:01:50.459 --> 00:01:52.659 spiraling out of control. And General Petraeus 00:01:52.659 --> 00:01:55.060 was the face of that strategy. He was the architect. 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:57.219 So he was scheduled to come to Capitol Hill and 00:01:57.219 --> 00:01:59.060 report on whether it was actually working. The 00:01:59.060 --> 00:02:01.120 stakes were enormous. If he says it's working, 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:04.000 the war continues. If he says it's failing, the 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:06.019 pressure to pull out becomes, you know, almost 00:02:06.019 --> 00:02:08.860 impossible to ignore. Precisely. The country 00:02:08.860 --> 00:02:12.960 was holding its breath. And MoveOn .org, which 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:16.120 was this very prominent anti -war liberal group, 00:02:16.379 --> 00:02:18.500 they decided they couldn't just wait for the 00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:20.659 report. They wanted to discredit the messenger. 00:02:20.879 --> 00:02:23.659 Before he even opened his mouth, it was a preemptive 00:02:23.659 --> 00:02:26.580 strike. So they buy this full -page ad. Now, 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:28.819 I want to get into the specific claims because 00:02:28.819 --> 00:02:31.879 they didn't just say the war is bad. They made 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:35.000 a very personal, very specific charge against 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:37.860 Petraeus himself. The core accusation was that 00:02:37.860 --> 00:02:40.560 a four -star general was, and I'm quoting here, 00:02:40.759 --> 00:02:43.199 cooking the books for the White House. Cooking 00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:45.659 the books. I mean, that's language you hear for 00:02:45.659 --> 00:02:48.419 corporate fraud for Enron. It implies a deliberate 00:02:48.419 --> 00:02:51.520 lie. It does. A calculated manipulation of data 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:53.879 to mislead the American people. So what were 00:02:53.879 --> 00:02:56.310 they saying he was faking? Well, they had to 00:02:56.310 --> 00:02:58.009 get specific. They claimed he was manipulating 00:02:58.009 --> 00:03:00.590 the violence statistics using what the ad called 00:03:00.590 --> 00:03:03.610 a bizarre formula. A bizarre formula. Yeah, the 00:03:03.610 --> 00:03:05.689 ad alleged that the Pentagon had just decided 00:03:05.689 --> 00:03:07.629 that, you know, deaths from car bombs didn't 00:03:07.629 --> 00:03:09.870 count in the violence statistics anymore. Wait, 00:03:09.930 --> 00:03:13.330 what? A car bomb in a marketplace is the definition 00:03:13.330 --> 00:03:15.889 of violence. How could they claim that wasn't 00:03:15.889 --> 00:03:18.509 being counted? The allegation was about reclassification, 00:03:18.830 --> 00:03:22.110 making the trend lines look better to show this 00:03:22.110 --> 00:03:25.469 drop in violence that maybe wasn't entirely real, 00:03:25.590 --> 00:03:28.550 but it got even more granular than that. This 00:03:28.550 --> 00:03:30.490 is the part I read in the notes that just sounds 00:03:30.490 --> 00:03:32.250 like something out of a spy novel, the bullet 00:03:32.250 --> 00:03:34.909 trajectory thing. It is gruesome. The ad claimed 00:03:34.909 --> 00:03:36.990 that the Washington Post had reported on this 00:03:36.990 --> 00:03:39.650 new metric the military was using. OK. It said 00:03:39.650 --> 00:03:42.310 that if a bullet entered the back of a victim's 00:03:42.310 --> 00:03:46.210 head, it was counted as sectarian violence. part 00:03:46.210 --> 00:03:49.110 of the war. But if the bullet entered the front 00:03:49.110 --> 00:03:51.229 of the head, it was just a regular murder. Criminal 00:03:51.229 --> 00:03:53.669 violence. Exactly. So front of the head, it's 00:03:53.669 --> 00:03:55.689 a crime stat. Back of the head, it's a war stat. 00:03:55.889 --> 00:03:58.169 And by just shifting those buckets around, you 00:03:58.169 --> 00:04:00.030 can make it look like the war is getting quieter, 00:04:00.169 --> 00:04:02.909 even if people are still dying. That is an incredibly 00:04:02.909 --> 00:04:05.370 heavy charge. You're telling the public the top 00:04:05.370 --> 00:04:07.689 general is playing games with entry wounds to 00:04:07.689 --> 00:04:11.289 sell a war. They also argued that in some neighborhoods 00:04:11.289 --> 00:04:13.569 where violence had dropped, it was only because 00:04:13.569 --> 00:04:16.689 of ethnic cleansing. Basically, it's quiet because 00:04:16.689 --> 00:04:19.810 one side killed or drove out everyone from the 00:04:19.810 --> 00:04:22.069 other side. OK, so we have the benefit of hindsight 00:04:22.069 --> 00:04:24.310 here and we have the fact checkers in our stack. 00:04:24.629 --> 00:04:27.480 Did these claims actually hold up? Not really. 00:04:27.560 --> 00:04:29.939 The Washington Post's own fact checker looked 00:04:29.939 --> 00:04:32.480 into it right away. I mean, because move on was 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:34.899 citing the post as a source. Right. The fact 00:04:34.899 --> 00:04:37.220 checker concluded that move on did not provide 00:04:37.220 --> 00:04:40.120 adequate factual support for the cooking the 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:43.500 books claim. And the car bombs. That seems pretty 00:04:43.500 --> 00:04:46.040 easy to check. Yeah. The Post noted that Petraeus' 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:48.959 report did include data on car bombs. It wasn't 00:04:48.959 --> 00:04:51.100 hidden. It wasn't excluded. OK. And what about 00:04:51.100 --> 00:04:53.000 the most visceral claim, the front of the head 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:55.740 versus back of the head thing? The multinational 00:04:55.740 --> 00:04:59.339 force in Iraq, the MNFI, they flatly denied it. 00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:02.040 They issued a statement saying they made no distinction 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:05.319 whatsoever based on points of impact. So the 00:05:05.319 --> 00:05:07.920 fact checkers just couldn't support that central, 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:10.980 most explosive claim. So you have a very shaky 00:05:10.980 --> 00:05:13.670 factual basis. wrapped in a headline calling 00:05:13.670 --> 00:05:17.329 a general a traitor during wartime. I'm guessing 00:05:17.329 --> 00:05:21.629 the reaction in D .C. wasn't subtle. It was nuclear. 00:05:21.709 --> 00:05:23.589 And this is where the story shifts from just 00:05:23.589 --> 00:05:26.269 being about media criticism to being a political 00:05:26.269 --> 00:05:28.569 disaster for the people who ran the ad. How so? 00:05:29.149 --> 00:05:31.509 Usually this stuff splits right down party lines, 00:05:31.670 --> 00:05:34.269 you know, Republicans attack, Democrats defend. 00:05:34.709 --> 00:05:37.930 But this ad was so toxic, it just blew up and 00:05:37.930 --> 00:05:40.370 move on space. OK, so the Republican reaction 00:05:40.370 --> 00:05:43.089 is predictable, right? President Bush calls it 00:05:43.089 --> 00:05:45.829 disgusting. Rudy Giuliani, who is running for 00:05:45.829 --> 00:05:47.610 president, calls it character assassination. 00:05:47.850 --> 00:05:50.860 That's the script. But the Democrats. They ran 00:05:50.860 --> 00:05:53.180 for the hills. Really? Because move on is a huge 00:05:53.180 --> 00:05:55.000 player on the left. You'd expect some cover. 00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:57.439 Not this time. Senator John Kerry called it over 00:05:57.439 --> 00:05:59.899 the top. Hillary Clinton, also running for president, 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.680 voted against impugning the patriotism of people 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:04.920 in uniform. So even the party's leaders were 00:06:04.920 --> 00:06:07.259 distancing themselves. Even Joe Biden, he went 00:06:07.259 --> 00:06:09.439 on Fox News and tried to, you know, thread the 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:11.779 needle. He said the point about the war might 00:06:11.779 --> 00:06:14.319 be valid, but the ad itself went overboard. It's 00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:16.759 pretty rare to see an advocacy group tick off 00:06:16.759 --> 00:06:19.949 its own allies that badly. And it didn't stop 00:06:19.949 --> 00:06:21.750 there, right? This actually made its way to the 00:06:21.750 --> 00:06:24.430 Senate floor. It did. The Senate literally paused 00:06:24.430 --> 00:06:27.050 its business to hold a vote on a newspaper ad. 00:06:27.129 --> 00:06:29.449 A vote on an advertisement. Republican Senator 00:06:29.449 --> 00:06:32.670 John Cornyn introduced an amendment. The text 00:06:32.670 --> 00:06:35.889 was specifically to strongly condemn personal 00:06:35.889 --> 00:06:38.310 attacks on the honor and integrity of General 00:06:38.310 --> 00:06:40.470 Petraeus. And looking at the vote tally in our 00:06:40.470 --> 00:06:44.129 notes. Yeah. It wasn't close. It was a landslide 00:06:44.129 --> 00:06:47.790 past 72 to 25. That means a lot of Democrats 00:06:47.790 --> 00:06:50.170 crossed the aisle to condemn the ad. The House 00:06:50.170 --> 00:06:53.649 did the same thing. 341 to 79. There is one very 00:06:53.649 --> 00:06:55.949 notable name missing from that Senate vote, though. 00:06:55.990 --> 00:06:59.050 Ah, yes. Senator Barack Obama. He didn't vote. 00:06:59.189 --> 00:07:01.470 He skipped it. He called the whole resolution 00:07:01.470 --> 00:07:04.160 a stunt and empty politics. It's fascinating 00:07:04.160 --> 00:07:06.819 looking back at the 2008 primary. You have Clinton 00:07:06.819 --> 00:07:09.199 voting to condemn the attack on Petraeus and 00:07:09.199 --> 00:07:12.079 Obama just refusing to even participate. It's 00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:13.879 incredible. But there's another layer to this 00:07:13.879 --> 00:07:15.420 that I find so interesting because it gets into 00:07:15.420 --> 00:07:18.399 the plumbing of how media works. The money. The 00:07:18.399 --> 00:07:20.759 discount scandal. Yeah, this is where it gets 00:07:20.759 --> 00:07:23.920 messy for The New York Times. So. Move On paid 00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:27.899 $65 ,000 for this full -page ad. Now, I don't 00:07:27.899 --> 00:07:30.779 buy ads in the Times, but for a full page in 00:07:30.779 --> 00:07:32.819 what's arguably the most important paper in the 00:07:32.819 --> 00:07:35.060 world, that sounds kind of cheap. Your instincts 00:07:35.060 --> 00:07:37.379 are good. The Washington Post did some digging 00:07:37.379 --> 00:07:41.240 and found the standard rate was over $142 ,000. 00:07:41.519 --> 00:07:43.860 Whoa. So they got it for less than half price. 00:07:44.139 --> 00:07:46.639 That was the accusation. Conservatives went wild. 00:07:46.860 --> 00:07:48.860 They said the Times was essentially making an 00:07:48.860 --> 00:07:52.100 illegal in -kind campaign contribution by undercharging 00:07:52.100 --> 00:07:54.600 them. That the paper was subsidizing the attack. 00:07:54.779 --> 00:07:57.360 Exactly. So what was the Times' defense? Did 00:07:57.360 --> 00:07:59.680 they have one? Their defense was basically, oops, 00:07:59.819 --> 00:08:02.839 our bad. They admitted they made a mistake. They 00:08:02.839 --> 00:08:05.639 said they gave MoveOn a standby rate. A standby 00:08:05.639 --> 00:08:07.740 rate. Explain that. It's like flying standby 00:08:07.740 --> 00:08:10.199 on a plane. You get a really cheap ticket, but 00:08:10.199 --> 00:08:13.060 you only get on if there's an empty seat. A standby 00:08:13.060 --> 00:08:15.620 ad is a deep discount you get if you tell the 00:08:15.620 --> 00:08:17.920 paper, hey, run this whenever you have a blank 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:20.399 page to fill. The catch is you don't get to pick 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:23.439 the day. But MoveOn ran this on September 10, 00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:27.120 the exact day Petraeus was testifying. That doesn't 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:29.879 sound very standby. Exactly. The Times gave them 00:08:29.879 --> 00:08:32.500 the cheap standby price, but also let them guarantee 00:08:32.500 --> 00:08:35.639 the specific, most impactful date. You can't 00:08:35.639 --> 00:08:38.480 have both. You can't. So to fix the whole mess, 00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:40.899 MoveOn had to cut another check for the difference, 00:08:41.120 --> 00:08:44.970 about $77 ,000. A few weeks later. So they paid 00:08:44.970 --> 00:08:47.210 full price in the end. But here's the thing. 00:08:47.250 --> 00:08:49.029 And we talk about the Streisand effect all the 00:08:49.029 --> 00:08:52.029 time. By holding a Senate vote, by making this 00:08:52.029 --> 00:08:54.610 front page news, didn't the Senate just give 00:08:54.610 --> 00:08:57.190 move on exactly what it wanted? This is the cynical 00:08:57.190 --> 00:08:59.470 brilliance of the whole thing. The condemnation 00:08:59.470 --> 00:09:02.190 was supposed to shame them. But financially, 00:09:02.389 --> 00:09:04.950 it was a bonanza. How much did they make? Our 00:09:04.950 --> 00:09:07.169 sources say that in just the four days after 00:09:07.169 --> 00:09:09.649 the Senate vote, move on raised one point six 00:09:09.649 --> 00:09:13.000 million dollars. One point six million. In four 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:16.080 days, that pays for the ad 20 times over. The 00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:17.980 Economist reported they raised half a million 00:09:17.980 --> 00:09:20.279 on the day of the vote alone. So while the political 00:09:20.279 --> 00:09:22.340 class was condemning them, MoveOn's base was 00:09:22.340 --> 00:09:24.759 fired up and opening their wallets. It's like 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:27.440 this weird symbiotic relationship. The Republicans 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:30.019 get a villain, MoveOn gets a fundraising spike, 00:09:30.159 --> 00:09:32.500 and the media gets a circus to cover. And even 00:09:32.500 --> 00:09:34.919 Rudy Giuliani got in on it. He ran his own counter 00:09:34.919 --> 00:09:37.679 ad in The Times. And funnily enough, he demanded 00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:41.960 and got that Sam Lowe $65 ,000 rate at first. 00:09:42.179 --> 00:09:44.580 He basically said, hey, I want the MoveOn deal. 00:09:44.759 --> 00:09:48.039 Of course he did. So that's 2007. The ad runs. 00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:50.220 The Senate explodes. Money comes pouring in. 00:09:50.419 --> 00:09:53.059 But the story's not over. We have to fast forward 00:09:53.059 --> 00:09:56.000 three years to 2010 to get the real punch line. 00:09:56.120 --> 00:09:58.539 Right. 2010, the political world has totally 00:09:58.539 --> 00:10:01.279 changed. George W. Bush is gone. Barack Obama 00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:03.440 is president. And the war in Afghanistan is now 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:05.639 the main focus. What about General Petraeus? 00:10:05.899 --> 00:10:08.419 He's still a very big deal. In fact, when General 00:10:08.419 --> 00:10:10.580 Stanley McChrystal is forced out, President Obama 00:10:10.580 --> 00:10:13.519 needs a new top commander in Afghanistan. And 00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:15.639 who does he pick? He picks General David Petraeus. 00:10:15.700 --> 00:10:18.840 The very same man. The man move on called General 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:22.000 Petraeus is now the chosen nominee of the president 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:24.240 they support. Which puts move on in a really 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:26.379 awkward position. I mean, they called this guy 00:10:26.379 --> 00:10:28.679 a traitor who cooks the books. Do they double 00:10:28.679 --> 00:10:32.059 down? They do the opposite. On June 23, 2010, 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:35.220 right after the nomination is announced, MoveOn 00:10:35.220 --> 00:10:38.700 quietly erases the general Betray Us webpages. 00:10:38.919 --> 00:10:41.820 They just scrubbed it. Completely. Any reference 00:10:41.820 --> 00:10:44.659 to the ad, the arguments, the cooking the books 00:10:44.659 --> 00:10:47.539 claims, gone. If you click the old link, you 00:10:47.539 --> 00:10:49.879 just got a page not found error. That is convenient. 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:52.759 Commentators at the time thought so too. One 00:10:52.759 --> 00:10:55.039 writer said it was pretty darn funny just imagining 00:10:55.039 --> 00:10:57.259 the group scrambling to their computers to hit 00:10:57.259 --> 00:10:59.259 delete the second Obama. made the announcement 00:10:59.259 --> 00:11:01.480 it really shows you how situational this kind 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:04.120 of outrage can be doesn't it it really does when 00:11:04.120 --> 00:11:06.240 Petraeus was the face of Bush's war he was a 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:10.059 villain when he became Obama's guy the criticism 00:11:10.059 --> 00:11:13.299 wasn't just silenced it was deleted so was the 00:11:13.299 --> 00:11:15.700 outrage ever about the principle of military 00:11:15.700 --> 00:11:18.659 accountability or was it just about which party 00:11:18.659 --> 00:11:21.919 was in the White House the scrub Kind of gives 00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:24.200 you the answer. It's just the latter for sure. 00:11:24.340 --> 00:11:26.460 So let's recap the whole mission here. We've 00:11:26.460 --> 00:11:28.580 tracked an ad that accused a general of faking 00:11:28.580 --> 00:11:31.460 data with these gruesome details about bullet 00:11:31.460 --> 00:11:34.519 wounds. Details that were rejected by fact checkers. 00:11:34.659 --> 00:11:37.200 We watched the political class unite to condemn 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:40.039 it while the group behind it just laughed all 00:11:40.039 --> 00:11:42.960 the way to the bank. And we saw the finale. where 00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:45.360 the supposed traitor becomes the hero nominee, 00:11:45.559 --> 00:11:48.299 and the evidence of the attack is just quietly 00:11:48.299 --> 00:11:51.320 swept under the digital rug. A perfect storm 00:11:51.320 --> 00:11:54.259 of politics, media, and money. It really is. 00:11:54.500 --> 00:11:56.460 And makes you wonder about the things we get 00:11:56.460 --> 00:11:58.659 outraged about today. That's the thought that 00:11:58.659 --> 00:12:00.539 lingers, isn't it? And that's the final thought 00:12:00.539 --> 00:12:02.980 I want to leave everyone with. You see things 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:05.200 today that are labeled disgusting or unacceptable. 00:12:05.500 --> 00:12:08.279 The whole machine grinds into gear to condemn 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:11.139 them. But if this story is any guide, we have 00:12:11.139 --> 00:12:14.059 to ask ourselves, Is this outrage permanent? 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:17.279 Or is it temporary? Right. If the political players 00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:19.960 change tomorrow, do we all just hit the delete 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:21.879 key and pretend it never happened? If the player 00:12:21.879 --> 00:12:24.779 changes, does the principle remain? In this case, 00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:28.200 the answer was a pretty loud no. Something to 00:12:28.200 --> 00:12:29.840 think about the next time you see a headline 00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:32.460 that makes your blood boil. Thanks for diving 00:12:32.460 --> 00:12:34.460 in with us. Thanks for listening. We'll see you 00:12:34.460 --> 00:12:35.279 on the next Deep Dive.