And I am quoted… Hank Shaw’s lede is that Bay Area activists got Jerry elected and are now frustraited by his remarks on Iraq. That is true, however, let me point out that the two bloggers he quoted are not from the Bay. I am in Sacto and Howie is in LA.

This faint praise for President Bush’s “surge” sent the activists into orbit. Hundreds of blog posts began pouring into cyberspace crying betrayal. Hundreds more postings emerged after House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, cited McNerney as among the Democrats who supposedly supported the surge. (Boehner’s spokesman is Brian Kennedy, who worked for Pombo last year.)

“Oh Jerry McNerney. What is to be done with you?” blogger Julia Rosen wrote on Calitics. “Frankly, I am saddened about this whole thing. It has been clear that all of our work to create communications channels about your Iraq positioning was for naught.”

Blogger Howie Klein at Firedoglake said he’s become “exasperated” with McNerney.

“Jerry was the one who wanted to end the occupation of Iraq,” Klein wrote. “I don’t really have any doubt that he still does. But he’s given lots of other people plenty of reasons to wonder, including many of his earliest and most devoted backers.”

An anti-war group is planning to picket McNerney’s Stockton office next week, reading out the names of the dead.

This particular article may serve to further depress McNerney’s activist base, but it may help him out in the district. While the majority of the district is in favor of withdrawal, I have a hard time believing that they would get upset over any praise of Bush or talk of cooperation with the Republicans. The article ends pretty stongly for him.

McNerney said maybe he could have telegraphed his position to his electronic supporters beforehand, but he said it’s not his job to be dogmatic.

“I’m a scientist, a problem solver,” said McNerney, who was a wind-energy engineer and a mathematician before winning his seat in Congress. “I want to use all the evidence I have at hand to make my decision.

“It’d be a lot easier for me to go with, ‘Let’s get out in three months,’ but that’s not going to fly,” he said. “All Americans want the same thing. It’s how we get there.”