Over at Time.com, Michael Kinsley has a very good column on the “outrage” over MoveOn.org’s advertisement about General Petraeus. A taste:
These days, mock outrage is used by every side of every dispute. It’s fair enough to criticize something your opponent said while secretly thanking your lucky stars that he said it. The fuss over this MoveOn.org ad is something else: it is the result of a desperate scavenging for umbrage material. When so many people are clamoring for a chance to swoon that they each have to take a number and when the landscape is so littered with folks lying prostrate and pretending to be dead that it starts to look like the end of a Civil War battle re-enactment, this isn’t spontaneous mass outrage. This is choreography.
I think that’s basically right; There’s a time-honored art to faux political outrage, and this ad created a fine opportunity to practice it.