The Democratic freshmen in the House are said to be a moderate bunch--by some lights even conservative. It is probably safer to call them economic populists, with a few border hawks, pro-lifers, and gun owners sprinkled here and there. Beyond basic partisanship and amorphous cries for "ethics" reform, there were two issues that united these Democrats during the 2006 campaign. The first was free trade. They're against it. Indeed, it's striking how far left the party has shifted on globalization since Bill Clinton championed NAFTA in the early 1990s. The second was the Iraq war. They're against that, too. Almost to a man the Democratic House freshmen tore into President Bush's handling of the war.

Some Republicans have comforted themselves with the thought that Democrats who won "red" districts would want to keep their distance from liberal leaders such as Nancy Pelosi and soft-pedal their criticism of Bush, should they desire a second term. While this may be true on taxes, immigration, and some cultural issues, the war in Iraq is another matter. In fact, among those House Democrats who took over Republican seats, there is almost uniform opposition to the counterinsurgency plan and troop reinforcements that Bush announced last week.

"Every freshman I've spoken with is just disgusted with this," says a Democratic House aide, who claims one of his party's freshmen mocked the Bush speech as "blabbering buffoonery." Even Joe Donnelly of Indiana, who has publicly hedged on the troop surge, is reportedly more critical in private. According to a

Democratic complaints take several forms. Iraq is in the throes of a civil war, they say. The only solution is political, not military. Adding over 20,000 U.S. troops will make Iraqis more dependent on American forces, not less. Past troop surges have not curtailed violence in Baghdad. Either way, top U.S. generals oppose the surge. Shouldn't Bush listen to his senior military advisers? Doesn't he realize his latest plan will only strain our armed forces further, and make them less capable of responding to contingencies elsewhere in the Middle East and East Asia? And whatever happened to the Iraq Study Group recommendations? Has Bush completely ignored them?

These are the typical gripes. The irony is that Democrats were once the folks advocating a bigger U.S. deployment to Iraq, citing the wisdom of such generals as former Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki. Now they've changed their tune.

The freshmen Democrats in the House are particularly curious. They ran on explicit pledges to investigate or question the administration's conduct in Iraq. As such, they might have been expected to support a new policy--but not this new policy. Most of them knocked off GOP incumbents or won previously Republican seats, but show little fear of alienating their constituents by attacking Bush on the war. This offers further evidence that even traditional GOP voters are souring on Iraq and itching for a U.S. withdrawal.