Brian Baird gets some attention from the WSJ

In this video interview with James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, Taranto notes the position taken by Washington Rep. Brian Baird (D) on Iraq:

[Baird] went to Iraq, he said we’re making progress there, he said we have a responsibility to the Iraqi people, and we can’t just pull out now, it doesn’t make sense. Now, what’s significant about this, I think, is that Baird avoids a fallacy that’s common to a lot of people who either opposed the war or supported it and then changed their minds, which is, you can think that it was a mistake to liberate Iraq. It does not necessarily follow from that that it is the right thing to do to pull out now. And a lot of people, I think, have confused the debate five years ago with the question of what to do now. They’re actually two completely separate questions.
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If you think we were right to go in, I think it makes sense that you would think that we ought to stick it out and be successful. but if you think that it was a mistake to go in, it doesn’t necessarily follow from that that it would be the right thing to do to pull out. And part of this is sort of a binary simple-mindedness: in good, out bad. But that doesn’t necessarily follow: it could be a mistake to go in that is compounded by getting out prematurely, and I think that’s what Baird is arguing.