MoveOn Taking on Independent Thinking Democrats

I knew this was coming once good news started to come from Iraq and Democrats started having second thoughts:

The anti-war group MoveOn.org announced on Wednesday that it is launching an ad campaign against a Democrat -- calling attention to Rep. Brian Baird's support of "President Bush's failed policy in Iraq."

The Washington State Democrat is acting "against the views of his constituents" and against his previous voting record, the liberal group said.

"Congressman Baird's new position, in favor of keeping our troops in an un-winnable civil war in Iraq, is out of line with the majority of his district and the nation," said Nita Chaudhary of the MoveOn.org Political Action Committee, in an e-mail message that described the Democrat's shift on the issue as a "recent flip-flop."

"So far, this has been one of the bloodiest summers in Iraq, and voters don't want to continue down a failed path," Chaudhary added. "They want representatives who will stand up to President Bush's reckless policy and bring our troops home."

Okay, so let's look at the ad their running and see if you can see what is obviously wrong with it:

The advertisement features John Bruhns, a U.S. Army infantry sergeant who describes an incident that happened while he was stationed in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004.

"One day, there was a riot in the Abu Ghraib market area," Bruhns says. "We had 2,000 people from the community protest our presence in their country. These were not terrorists."

"We were told that we were there to liberate these people," he states. "They were shooting at us.

I don't doubt that what Sgt. Bruhns is saying actually happened, but notice that he hasn't been in Iraq since sometime in 2004. A lot has changed over there since then, and while I'm sure Iraq was a dangerous place when Sgt. Bruhns served there, the ad completely ignores the progress made in the three years since then. It assumes that conditions haven't changed at all, which is basically the philosophy of MoveOn. They don't really care what the actual conditions are today - they just want our troops out of there regardless of how much sense such a move would make.

I don't know enough about Rep. Baird's district to know if this ad will be trouble for him, but based on some other things I've read about him, he's not going to be too worried. For instance:

Baird has paid a price for his new stance on Iraq. One left-wing blogger dubbed him "Dick Cheney's trained monkey." And the congressman admitted that his office has received "some angry calls" from constituents in the state's 3rd District.

Nevertheless, the congressman has managed to maintain his sense of humor. As Fox News reported Tuesday, Baird told reporters after a contentious town hall meeting in Vancouver: "Somebody said to me: 'Oh man, you're going to get killed tonight. I said: 'No, they get killed in Iraq. I'm going to get criticized.'"

The last thing MoveOn wants is a Democrat who's an independent thinker. Good for Rep. Baird for acting with the courage of his convictions. That's a rare trait among Democrats.