Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry argue that Moveon.org made a smart move with its ad in the New York Times:

MoveOn understands the way messages move in our new Internet-driven media environment. It's not enough to make a speech or issue a press release or buy a newspaper ad. Nor does it matter if you have a great press list, or ins with all the top political bloggers on the planet or a blog of your own.

You have to do something "remark"-able that individuals will want to talk about and share with others. (Even if that means a lot of those individuals will be criticizing you, as the Republicans have been attacking MoveOn's rhetoric.)

As a former advertising executive, I appreciate Rasiej and Sifry's arguments about the nature of viral marketing, but this is one of those process pieces that totally misses the point. Advertisers can do a lot of things to break through the clutter and generate "buzz," but just because they can do something doesn't mean they should. And you can't wave off the moral considerations of an ad just because it may produce favorable metrics.

Moveon.org took out a full page ad in the most influential paper in the country to impugn the integrity of David Petraeus - a highly decorated four star general who has spent his life in service to America and is currently leading 160,000 of our citizen-soldiers in war - and to call him a liar two days before he offered testimony to the United States Congress. Yes, it generated "buzz." But it was still a truly slanderous, repugnant thing to do.