Loyalty Oaths and Dear Leader

Right-wing authoritarianism is scary.

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

Yes, that’s right. Unabashed blacklisting of anyone willing to question the President. Our friends at Weapons of Mass Discussion, NixGuy, and RABid have all signed The Pledge. That means that these people think Chuck Hagel’s pleading for open and honest discussion is treasonous.

Glenn Greenwald hits a home run on this one.

UPDATE: I suppose I should point out that this all started with a carefully phrased question from Joe Lieberman:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) asked Army Lt. Gen. David H . Petraeus during his confirmation hearing yesterday if Senate resolutions condemning White House Iraq policy “would give the enemy some comfort.”

Petraeus agreed they would, saying, “That’s correct, sir.”

It is not coincidental that Lieberman so closely tracked the treason language in the Constitution. His goal is to clearly smear those who would oppose the surge as bad policy with the label “traitor”. For all I care, Lieberman can go rot.

So suck on this one wingnuts – a post from the unabashedly liberal bloggers at Plunderbund praising a Republican and slamming a Democrat. We don’t carry water for any party.