Afghan Escalation OK with MoveOn, Anti-War Insiders

Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent notes that "President Obama’s announcement today of an escalation in the American presence in Afghanistan is being met with mostly silence - and even some support - from the most influential liberal groups who opposed the Iraq War. ... MoveOn.org ... declined to make any public statement about Obama’s Afghan policies in response to my queries. An official close to the group confirmed to me that MoveOn wouldn’t be saying anything in the near term. ... Nor will we hear anything from Americans United for Change, which ran $600,000 worth of TV ads against the Iraq War in the summer of 2007. 'Americans United for Change doesn’t plan to comment on President Obama’s new strategy,' a spokesperson for the group, Lauren Weiner, just emailed. Jon Soltz, the head of VoteVets ... came out in support of Obama’s Afghan strategy in an Op Ed with The Huffington Post. ... Liberal groups don’t want to distract from passing Obama’s enormous domestic agenda. ... And officials with some of these groups don’t want to lose inside influence with the White House."