MoveOn.org ad controversy

The MoveOn.org ad controversy began when the U.S. anti-war liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org published a full-page ad in The New York Times on September 10, 2007, accusing General David H. Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House". The ad also labeled him "General Betray Us". The organization created the ad in response to Petraeus' Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq. MoveOn hosted pages on its website about the ad and their reasons behind it from 2007 to June 23, 2010. On June 23, 2010, after President Obama nominated General Petraeus to be the new top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan (taking over the position from retiring General Stanley McChrystal), MoveOn erased these webpages and any reference to them from its website.

The ad argued:

The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" stated that the General's report of "sharply declining Iraqi casualty rates is certainly open to analysis, debate, and challenge" but that "MoveOn.org does not provide adequate factual support for its larger assertion that Petraeus is 'constantly at war with the facts' and is 'cooking the books' for the White House".

The New York Times initially charged MoveOn.org $65,000 for the ad using its "standby rate." The Washington Post has stated that the full one-time rate is $142,000 for an ad receiving guaranteed placement on a specific day.Times public editor and Pulitzer Prize-winner Clark Hoyt later stated in an editorial that the organization was mistakenly charged a rate to which it was not entitled under the newspaper's policies. Moveon.org repaid the difference to the Times on September 25, 2007.The New York Post quoted a Times public relations director saying the full one-time rate was $182,000, an additional $40,000 above what has been paid back.

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