Over at PowerLine, John Hinderaker issues an extended retort to The Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman’s attack on the Progress for America sponsored Midwest Heroes ad, in support of the Iraq war.

Hinderacker does much to set the record straight. Coleman is an insufferable idiotarian, who shouldn’t even be given the time of day. However, his Star Tribune column gives him a rather large soapbox, and his factual errors and outright lies must be addressed.

However, Hinderaker frames his criticism of Coleman as an attack on the free speech rights of Lt. Col. Bob Stephenson, Staff Sgt. Marcellus Wilks, and Captain Mark Weber – the three Iraq vet “Midwest Heroes” featured in the ad – alluding, of course, to the over-the-top response of radical Islamists to the notorious “Mohammed” cartoons. In so doing, he degrades his entire argument.

Were Coleman to be threatening the beheading of the three servicemen, or the principals of PFA, the association would be valid. Coleman is doing nothing more than casting his lot in the free market of ideas. However, by playing the Freedom of Speech card, Hinderaker engages in the same rhetorical trickery as Coleman. This is shameful; he’s normally much better than that.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit