E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Antiwar Dems turn on one of their own
Congressman Brian Baird (D-3 Vancouver, Washington) hosted a town hall tonight at Fort Vancouver High School. It was Baird’s first appearance in front of his constituents since reversing his position on the war. ALTHOUGH he’s been an adamant critic of the war—he voted against the war and the surge—he announced last week that he thinks the surge is working and he wants to give it time. . . .

He was hammered by Jon Soltz,[note 1] the young, good looking, charismatic chairman and co-founder of political action committee VoteVets.org. Soltz is also an Iraq war veteran, having served in 2003.
"A former Miss America, Soltz enjoys writing poetry, caring for animals, and long walks on the--HEY! Who said that? Whaddaya mean, I'm not objective?"
Speaking calmly and to raucous applause, he said Baird (who recently returned from a visit to Iraq) was fooled “by a dog and pony show” and is unfortunately “providing cover for President Bush.”
"Deviation from acceptable Party discourse will be punished by reeducation!"
"Hey, waitaminute, I thought dissent was the highest form of patriotism."
"Yes, we in the antiwar movement are dissenters, and that makes us patriotic. If you oppose us, that makes you the opposite of patriotic, which is unpatriotic. So, you unpatriotic filth, do you want to be shot for treason? No? Then shut up!"
Another speaker who brought down the house was Zanne Joi, a Vancouver activist with Code Pink Women for Peace. Joi called Baird “arrogant” for trying to dictate how Iraqis should govern themselves and said the war was only about “American oil profit.”

A third speaker, who also spoke to tremendous applause, was Jane Lustig from Vancouver, whose main complain was that Baird was not representing his constituents’ point of view.

I also talked to several people as they left the auditorium and asked them if they found Baird—who was there to explain his new position—to be persuasive. To a person, everyone shook their head “no way,” including Doris Holmes, active member of the 18th district Democrats, who said, “He lied. He’s toeing the Bush party line. I can’t believe he’s a Democrat.”

Note 1: This is the same clown who shouted down a soldier at the Yearly KKKos KKKonvention a while back.

Some interesting responses in the combox:

The facts on the ground don't seem to matter to Baird's critics. Many observers are saying, not just Baird, that the military/security situation in Iraq has improved due to the surge and they have statistics to back this up. The possibility that Baird's new position could be sincere, perhaps even more correct than the anti-war Democrats' insistence that the war is lost, cannot be admitted by his critics.

You say you want politicians who stand on principle, who are independent, who call things the way they see them. And then you pounce. Maybe you need to be rethinking your stance, not trying to bully this politician out of his.

Baird is an idiot for changing his mind about the Iraq War simply because the situation on the ground improved. Progressives need to put the pressure on so that even a simpleton like Baird will toe the party line and agree to a complete and immediate pullout in order to give the US the defeat it deserves. Giving him a lashing like this one in Vancouver is a great start.
(Not sure if that last one was being ironic or not.)
Posted by: Mike 2007-08-28
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=197411