I'm a big fan of Moveon because it does some amazing work, especially considering its small staff. I love their virtual phonebanks, I love their coordinated Congressional lobbying, I love their netroots ad contests, and I love many of their TV ads.

But Ari Melber's interview with Justin Ruben, Moveon's new Executive Director, reveals Moveon's limitations:

MoveOn's four "core" policy areas, decided by members during December house meetings, are economic recovery, universal health care, climate change and ending the Iraq war.

Melber notes,

Congress will take up the Auto Industry Bailout when they re-convene this week.  There is no better time than this moment to PUSH for concessions from the Auto Industry.  Time is short.  Democrat.com, can you help us act NOW? Here's a copy of a letter I just mailed to Speaker Pelosi:      Dear Madam Speaker,

Please make the FLEXFUEL component a MANDATORY requirement for any Auto Industry bailout.
IT ONLY COSTS $100 to install this component on a vehicle during the manufacturing process.  The only EPA approved retrofit costs $1300.  All cars sold in Brazil are flexfuel ready.  All cars that GM sells in Brazil are flexfuel compatible.  There is no excuse and there should be no delay in making all cars sold in America flexfuel capable.
THIS IS THE QUICKEST CHEAPEST EASIEST WAY to make rapid reductions in our foreign oil imports.

    Please help unite
Obama supporters in rejecting McCain’s
negative campaign style. We must clean up politics if things are ever to get
better. We have a chance to be so much more than the same old attack politics,
but Obama must hear the voices of his supporters on this.

Please read the message to Obama on the following blog and
help spread it to others.

http://manyhands.blogspot.com/

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I am most sincerely flattered that Moveon unveiled VotePoke.org as a clone of the voter registration verification system we created before the 2006 election at MyDem.com.

Our system was a big success and nearly 20,000 voters used it despite little publicity.

If you read carefully enough, you'll discover Moveon even plagiarized our exact language: "Are you registered to vote? Are you sure?"

Of course Moveon raises million$$ each year and we raise ... ten$$. But who's counting?

Still it would have been nice if Moveon had credited us with showing them how to do it, or sent a personal note of thanks. Just sayin'.

For entirely crazy reasons, the biggest news story of last week was Moveon.org's ad in the NY Times.

Was it the biggest news story because Moveon questioned a sacred General? Hardly. American generals have been questioned throughout American history, starting with Gen. George Washington's defeat at Brandywine Creek.

The only reason is because FOX News created a Shitstorm (TM) over the ad.

What is a Shitstorm (TM)? It's when FOX News takes a bullshit topic and turns it into a tornado by pumping it full of bullshit for a major chunk of each news cycle for day after day.

There have been innumerable Shitstorms since FOX went on the air. FOX actually has two going right now - the Moveon ad and the visit of Ahmedinejad to Columbia. If you tune in for any given hour you'll get at least 10 minutes of both.

Well whaddya know - I just got an email from Nita Chaudhary and the good people at Moveon.org, who are considering primary challenges against Bush Dog Democrats - an idea I first proposed on 5/30/07. (On 8/22/07 I threw my support behind the excellent Bush Dog campaign led by OpenLeft.com because they were doing in-depth research on which incumbents to challenge.)

Dear MoveOn member,

We've all heard it from the Democratic leadership over and over again: "we don't have the votes."

Hundreds of thousands of us worked to get Democratic majorities elected. So why don't they have the votes? One reason is that there are a set of weak Democrats who side with the president--especially on Iraq. They're too scared to fight for what's right and what they were elected to fight for.

MoveOn is finally moving on to talk about the possibility of impeachment proceedings!

Sign their petition:
http://pol.moveon.org/subpoena/

It states:

"Congress must force Vice President Cheney to respond to its subpoenas. If he continues to obstruct justice and disregard the rule of law, Congress has no choice but to begin impeachment proceedings against him."

Richard M. Mathews

This weekend I bumped into Eli Pariser, Executive Director of Moveon.org Political Action, and we had a friendly chat about our efforts to persuade Moveon to support impeachment, which includes this petition:
http://www.democrats.com/moveon-impeachment-petition

Eli sent me the FAQ reply Moveon sends members who ask about impeachment. In the interests of transparency, I'll post it here (emphasis added):

Thank you for your recent message on impeachment. We take your opinion-and all feedback from MoveOn members-very seriously.

A number of MoveOn members have contacted us to encourage us to work on impeachment and/or to ask that we survey MoveOn members on the issue.

Here's a remarkable story from the NY Times entitled "With New Clout, Antiwar Groups Push Democrats." I believe it's the first article in the Corporate Media that acknowledges the clout, sophistication, and determination of the progressive anti-war movement: 

On Thursday, leaders of the liberal group MoveOn.org, including Tom Matzzie, the group’s Washington director who also serves as the campaign manager for the coalition, sent a harshly worded warning to the Democratic leadership.