President Bush denounced a recent ad by moveon.org as “disgusting” for claiming that General David Petraeus cherry-picked data to make it seem as if military success is being achieved in Iraq. Quote Bush:

“I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on Gen. Petraeus but on the U.S. military, and I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democratic Party spoke out more strongly against that kind of ad. That leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org — or more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal. It’s one thing to attack me; it’s another thing to attack somebody like General Petraeus.”

If there’s one thing we actually do like about President Bush, it’s that the man has stones. He makes Randy Couture look like Randy Parker from that scene in A Christmas Story when he layed defenseless on the ground as Scut Farkus uncle’d Flick into submission.

Bush is clearly being selective in his criticism of other’s criticism of military men. During the 2004 presidential campaign, he ignored calls to condemn the Swift Boat ad attacking decorated Vietnam War vet John Kerry.

Not only this, but he never addressed the fact that John Kerry looks EXACTLY like the New England Patriots’ logo. Not that he was obligated to, but come on. Dead ringer.

Let’s not forget that Bush also was mum in his disgust over ads smearing the reputations of Sen. John McCain in 2000 and former Senator Max Cleland in 2002, again, both decorated Vietnam War vets.

And finally, it’s not as though someone working under the President’s orders has ever cherry-picked data before (we’re looking at you, weapons of mass destruction). In fairness to General Petraeus, the military does have this thing called ‘the chain of command’ which basically means you follow orders from those above you without question, kind of like meerkats. So Petraeus is basically screwed. Even if Petraeus didn’t want to cherry-pick data, if Bush asked for it, Petraeus is most likely going to do it, just like Colin Powell did.

For more on the story, here. For pictures of the 20th anniversay of A Christmas Story (Scott Schwartz just keeps getting creepier looking) here.