Obama: Senate vote on MoveOn ad a cheap political stunt

Barack Obama, unlike 72 Senators distracted from dealing with a costly bloody war in a substantive way, gets it right when he says today's symbolic resolution against a silly MoveOn ad is a waste of time:

"The focus of the United States Senate should be on ending this war, not on criticizing newspaper advertisements," Obama said. "This amendment was a stunt designed only to score cheap political points while what we should be doing is focusing on the deadly serious challenge we face in Iraq. It's precisely this kind of political game-playing that makes most Americans cynical about Washington's ability to solve America's problems. By not casting a vote, I registered my protest against this empty politics. I registered my views on the ad itself the day it appeared."

And David Kurtz at TPM makes this observation:

But by my calculation, more U.S. senators (72) voted today to condemn a newspaper ad attacking Gen. Petraeus than voted yesterday (56) to lengthen the time off troops get from the frontlines in Iraq, thereby reducing individual soldiers exposure to actual attacks.

Meanwhile, 3,793 US military personnel have died in Iraq, 1.2 million civilians have died violent deaths (according to a recent study), countless GIs have been injured, and we've spent $453 billion on the war.