Last Friday Murtha announced with great fanfare that he would run for Democrat Majority leader:
June 9 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Representative John Murtha, a Vietnam War veteran who has called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, said he plans to run for majority leader if Democrats win control of the House in the November elections.
Murtha, 73, sent a two-sentence letter to all House Democrats today stating his interest in the post, said his spokeswoman, Cindy Abram.
(Interesting he forgot to add "if he wins his OWN election").
Now, his sudden interest in a leadership post after all these years raised some questions, which he sought to answer in this local Pennsylvania Paper:
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Immediately, speculation began to arise about whether Murtha’s recent foray into the spotlight was a calculated strategy aimed at improving his political standing. While attending the official opening of Gamesa Inc.’s Fiberblade plant in Cambria Township on Monday, Murtha dismissed the critical speculation as being off target.
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“I decided I needed to step up because a lot of Democrats were sitting on the fence regarding the war,” Murtha said. “We needed to show the country that something had to be done. We needed to show the country that there are two positions on this issue: President Bush’s and mine.”
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Murtha said announcing his intentions to run for House majority leader was a difficult one. He said he enjoys his current position of ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
Of course there are more than two positions on the issue. And assuming he wins his own race, I hope he enjoys his current position.
Anyway, four days later he (or more accurately, he as directed by Nancy Pelosi) was singing a different tune:
WASHINGTON Jun 13, 2006 (AP)— Rep. John Murtha, a candidate for House majority leader if the Democrats oust the Republicans from power in November, said Tuesday will not actively campaign for that post until after the elections.
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Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Murtha was suspending his campaign "in the spirit of unity to achieve our goal of winning a Democratic majority in November."
At least Pelosi told the truth -- The Democrats goal is NOT about what is good for the country, it's not what they will do to make things better, improve our security, win the war on terrorism, or solve the budget problems. It's winning a Democratic majority.
His opponent in Pa, Diana Irey, had a good guess at what may have prompted Pelosi to put the kibosh on Murtha's run for leadership:
“Jack Murtha’s decision to suspend his campaign for House Majority Leader – curiously, announced by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, rather than by Mr. Murtha himself – is just one more example that he is out of touch and in need of retirement from active duty in the Congress.
“Just as he demonstrated that he’s got an itchy trigger finger with his reckless pre-judging of U.S. Marines at Haditha – acting as prosecutor, judge, and jury and convicting them of ‘killing innocent civilians in cold blood’ before any charges had been filed, before any court martial had been convened, before a single Marine had been convicted – this latest episode, in which he announced a campaign for House Majority Leader (an office the Democratic Party doesn’t currently hold) on Friday afternoon, and then, 96 hours later, abandons the effort, leads one to wonder what in the world is going through his head
“Of course, maybe it wasn’t what was going through Mr. Murtha’s head, but what was going through Mrs. Pelosi’s head – to wit: In a year when she had planned to make corruption a key campaign theme, it’s possible she just decided that having a man whose thumbnail bio includes the words ‘Abscam unindicted co-conspirator’ running for a leadership position probably wasn’t such a good idea.
“Perhaps it’s not the Marines who are ‘overstressed,’ to use Mr. Murtha’s word. Jack Murtha has lost his way, and obviously needs a good vacation. It’s time to retire him from active duty in the Congress.”
I disagreed with Diana's press release on one point. Where she said "before a single Marine had been convicted", I would have said "before a single Marine has had his day in court".
Anyway, I think John Murtha has just learned the hard way what the Democrat party generally thinks of him, dragging him out when they need cover on national security, but not wanting to give him real power.
8 comments:
For those who don't want to follow the links, hancuff is apparently citing the democrat-written summary of the Intelligence Committee report to claim that the actual facts in the report deny any relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
In addition to being a largely moot point because the reason for going to war with Saddam had nothing to do with al-qaeda ties, it turns out that the actual report (not the summary) contains evidence of the links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and does not support the statements of the democrats about the report.
Of course, in any case it seems the democrats want a "do-over", like if they can prove that bush lied, we can magically go back in time, put Saddam back in power, and not have a war to fight anymore.
I don't get it -- how can our decision about what to do TODAY be in any way effected by what it turns out the intelligance community got wrong before we went to war?
I thought it was absurd that we were re-fighting the decision to go to war during the 2004 election, rather than what to do in the present. But at least you could argue that the opposition wanted to punish the man who got us into the war.
But in 2006, Bush is not running.
I guess if you have nothing positive for america, you have to keep re-fighting decisions which are irreversable and made years ago.
BTW, I can't say what chancuff's motive was in posting this -- he's either trying to point out the silliness of the argument like I did, or he wanted to advance the argument (which I think not having visited his web site).
The tag "the anatomy of ... crash and burn" suggests a post which is critical of the Irey campaign, but his blog has a single post which seem supportive of Irey.
good evening, Charles. I beg to differ. I don't think you'll find this update to today's GOP cut&run from facts anywhere else. It's just me.
perhaps you'll take a moment from your busy schedule to protest Bush's incompetence in war that has been getting our troops blown to bits for over 3 years.
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"For those who don't want to follow the links, hancuff is apparently citing the democrat-written summary of the Intelligence Committee report to claim that the actual facts in the report deny any relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda."
:::cough:::
The Senate Committee who wrote this report was bi-patisan, with a Republican as head.
Where do you get this stuff? :-)
RE-POST WITH EXPLANATION. THE LINKS ABOVE ARE TRUNCATED AND NOT CORRECT. THE LINKS HERE MAY APPEAR THE SAME, BUT THEY POINT TO THE PROPER PLACES.
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"Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth" ignored a couple issues CRITICAL to our troops at war during the run-up to the 2004 election.
First, they sat silent knowing full well that Bush NEVER USED the number of troops he incessantly claims his generals asked for. Turkey would not allow the 40,000 troops of the 4th to pass through and participate in Bush's invasion of Iraq.
Bush waged war KNOWING our troops were 40,000 short.
Second, these same Lookatme! Showboaters sat silent when this very same troop shortage resulted in America's greatest tragedy of the war in Iraq.
EVERYONE who's ever gone through basic training knows that when you find your enemies weapons, you keep them secure.
Hundreds of tons of high explosives that our troops had captured at Al Qaqaa were abandoned specifically due to troops shortages, CREATED by Bush's incompetence in war.
These explosive stolen from Al Qaqaa are the weapons that have been used to blow our troops into too many parts to count each and every day of this war.
When some pasty butt wimp, like Larry Bailey of bootmurtha.com, decides to pass his "gimme' some money" collection plate to support his concept of patriotism for a circus tent performance at The Cambria County War Memorial on October 1st of this year ...
Some would say there's nothing more patriotic than putting a moron who's never given a hoot about our troops at war (or he would have spoke up about those 40k troops left behind and Al Qaqaa IN 2004) in his proper place ...he's a coward.
To make matters even MORE entertaining, Larry Bailey actually thinks having John O'Neill, the original Lookatme! Show Boater, as his surprise guest speaker is a feather in his cap.
You may not like the stand John Murtha has been making, but for anyone who supports our troops at war, there's no way to respond to these idiot Swiftboaters' Reunion in Murtha's home town of Johnstown, Pa, than a chorus of Bronx raspberries.
I hope this clarifies.
Cliff Hancuff
The World of Journalism Is Flat, Too
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Things are JUST NOT GOING WELL for the folks at the "Diana Irey for Congress" camp.
Diana Irey Press Release UPDATE!
http://community.cnhi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/38410611/m/911101894
(read first 4 posts, the rest if you fancy to)
http://community.cnhi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/38410611/m/631100794
http://community.cnhi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/38410611/m/134103794
(click all links found in post, or you will get/be lost)
http://community.cnhi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/38410611/m/197109694
OK, so we are complaining because the Swift Boat Veterans, whose sole purpose was to get out what they believed to be the truth about John Kerry, in response to what they believed were lies about their own service, did not also complain about the Iraq war, something they never discussed.
I will agree that the SBV never pointed out the lack of troops in the gulf war. I also stipulate that we had 40,000 troops too few because of Turkey.
I don't agree that the invasion should have been cancelled because of the problem of Turkey, although that clearly left was a problem. Invading a month later however also would have had it's problems.
If we are complaining we shouldn't have gone to war, that would simply mirror my opinion at the time, but has nothing to do with either the SBV who were upset at Kerry's perceived lies about their records, or Murtha's current complaints.
I remember the story about the explosives "dissappearing", it was another of those Octover surprises by the NYTimes trying to defeat Bush. I remember that the day after the election, that story dissappeared. When it resurfaced a year later, it turned out that the story was largely overblown and the truth not nearly so scary.
Which doesn't change the fact that we had too few troops at the start of the Gulf war.
The intelligence committee was split on how to write up the results, and two sets of conclusions. IN the end, the former Kerry campaign staffer working for Hagel convinced Hagel and Snowe to vote with the democrats, yeilding a "bipartisan" report which was the democrat report with two republicans joining in.
In other words, it was the report written by the democrats, not the report written by the republicans.
But that's not important. The important thing is that the summary doesn't comport with the facts as written in the report.
But the summary IS in perfect alignment with the stated plan of the democrats 3 years ago in the leaked memo, which explained how the democrats would push for this investigation, cooperate until the end, and then write a report that excoriated the administration.
That was before the investigation started.
There's another part that hasn't gotten out yet, the part about what lawmakers said before the war. It's not out because the republicans have included quotes from both sides of the aisle, and don't want to specify who said what -- and the democrats realise that without names, half the quotes they criticize could end up being their own.
I should start a new thread....
The facts about Al Qaqaa were overblown. The first reports came right after the end of the ground war, but the New York Times resurrected the story, supposedly because of a new report but it wasn't new, right before the election.
A month later, when the election was over, not a WORD about this horrible thing that had happened. The next year the truth came out, it was mostly a problem of paperwork, most of the weapons had been destroyed, but the records weren't accurate.
Also, much of the facility had been bombed during the war, destroying much of what was there.
So in fact, there was no convincing evidence that ANY weapons of consequence made it out of the facility, much less that they ended up in the hands of the enemy.
That was all covered in the followup article, which was on I think page A17 of the New York Times when it finally came out.
Since the NYTimes went behind a wall of "for-pay", I haven't been able to find my references anymore (I've got a couple of links but they don't work). When I resurrect my laptop (which has a half-dead drive) I hope to find some saved copies of the articles in question.
I was working on an article about the weapons but never finished it and decided that since it had been dropped by the MSM and the opposition, there was no need to debunk it.
But apparently not entirely.
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