To be perfectly honest, up to a few months ago I never paid any attention at all to Cong. John Murtha, D-PA. He was just another back-bencher to me, if I even recognized his name, which I doubt. And I assume this was the case for most people. Now he seems to be all over us like the proverbial cheap suit – he just won’t go away. This weekend we find the gentleman opining once again: “American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said to an audience of more than 200 in North Miami Saturday afternoon.”
Well, okay, John, “it is so, if you think so,” as Pirandello once said [hint to Murtha: that's a deceased Italian playwright]. But reading the Congressman’s latest made me wonder why he would say something so obviously asinine. Does he actually believe it? More likely he has convinced himself of his great profundity because he is getting his fifteen minutes and then some. The minute Murtha starts sounding like a reasonable fellow he will disappear into the anonymity he has always had and so richly deserves. So my suggestion is we start to ignore Mr. Murtha. He will do either of two things: 1. Go away. 2. Become even more outrageous to get our attention and get voted out of office in the process. Failing these, we can always “fix an ass’s head” on him like Lysander (scratch that – Bottom) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the cliché goes – it’s all good!
Keep an eye on http://www.murthalied.com/ . The webmaster ran one of our two sites for Vietnam Veterans for the Truth in 2004.
The fun is about to begin.
Some people can’t ignore him, but since the press will ignore them, it won’t give him any attention anyway.
So this is the etymology of the term “asshat”.
I am beginning to think there is something wrong with him, I mean I think he might be ill.
Roger asks:
“But reading the Congressman’s latest made me wonder why he would say something so obviously asinine. Does he actually believe it?”
What he believes is that his constituents believe it and the media believe it — and that the combination will be enough to get him re-elected.
“So my suggestion is we start to ignore Mr. Murtha.”
Keep the microphone open for that man. He’s great at fundraising for Republican challenger Diana Irey:
http://www.irey.com/
Maybe Rove will help fund Murtha’s campaign. The more JM talks, the more the Dems look deeply unserious.
I am beginning to think there is something wrong with him, I mean I think he might be ill.
I think so too. It’s a shame that the Democrats are so desparate to gain the legitimacy conferred by military service that they are pushing this ex-Marine on the public every chance they have. I suspect it will all come to a bad end.
Lysander?
If we go back to the 1950s we can remember Joe McCarthy making irresponsible statements which eventually led to a rebuke by Eisenhower and the Senate. His own party turned against him when his addiction to press coverage overcame the need to be responsible. (I know that there are as many opinions on Joe McCarthy as there are on John Kerry. Let’s keep it simple for a minute.)
When will the Democrats intervene to get the congressman back on his medications? If not soon the people of PA will act in Nov.
Rebuke him?
Murtha is just repeating the essense of the modern Democratic party’s “This I believe.”
Failing these, we can always “fix an ass’s head” on him like Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Uh, Bottom.
Count me out of all debates on the propriety and wisdom of what Murtha’s doing. Just want all you good folks to keep in mind: Jack Murtha has had a lot of opportunities in his thirty four year Congressional career to become a “leftist icon” or whatever it is you think he has become these days. But he has explicitly rejected such a mantle, and in fact tended toward the opposite political end of the political spectrum, until now.
In the eighties, he was anti nuclear freeze and pro contra. In the nineties, he was anti-Clinton on gays in the military and on cutting the defense budget. And, of course, he was a STRONG ally of President Bush in the initial rush to war against Iraq.
My point is that the Bush doctrine, its implementation, and, most importantly, the EARLY RESULTS of it’s implementation, have turned the political world upside down: “conservatives” have become “liberals”, doves have become hawks, and vice versa.
“Count me out of all debates on the propriety and wisdom of what Murtha’s doing.”–Markus
And your reason is?
You completed your post with what I take to be a complete non-sequiter which evidently you somehow believe to be a foundation for this sentence.
The fact that ‘attitudes’ and ‘outlooks’ may be transitioning at the current moment has nothing to do with whether Murtha has his head firmly inserted in his nether region, or whether indeed he is ‘ill’. What he says, when he babbles like this, stands alone and is either laudatory or contemptible per se. Why on earth should you feel that you should not comment on his ‘profundity’, simply because he is not really a “leftist icon “?
Inquiring minds want to know. I personally think he is both an ignorant boob and a sad commentary on the state of American Politics. And I could care less about his ‘track record’ or his ‘non-icon’ status. His boobishness speaks (well actually screams ) for itself. He could be the most Conservative member of the House and he would still be, IMO, a clueless doofus.
dougf — I count myself out of the Murtha debate because I remain unsure about whether a gradual pullout of our forces from Iraq is our best option right now. It’s a tough call, but I think it could be premature, possibly even ill-advised. And being this torn I’m not about to stand on my chair and scream for justice one way or the other.
What DOES make my blood boil is when I see the old, tired, but unfortunately OFTEN EFFECTIVE tactic framing the debate over this or other unpopular wars as a battle between patriotic war supporters and seditious leftists/Buchananite reactionaries. Murtha isn’t a leftist or a reactionary. He’s a conservative Democratic member of Congress, with a career record of voting more with Republican than with Democrats on Pentagon policy matters.
“American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran.” –Idiot
“I count myself out of the Murtha debate because I remain unsure about whether a gradual pullout of our forces from Iraq is our best option right now.”–Markus
One of these things is not like the other. With respect, you can be outraged if you wish about the ‘use’ of the patriotism card for ‘political’ purposes. Frankly when this is done, I am a little upset as well. But frankly the NYT, for example, is behaving in an openly perfidious manner ( I want to use another word here, but to spare your sensibilities, I am being discrete), and I think it is fair to so point out. It is an objective evaluation.
Likewise when Murtha says something as clueless as this, any other peripheral issues are not really germane.
Are they?
With all respect you are still dancing around the problem here, and as fast as you can go it will never really be fast enough. The issue of fast/slow withdrawal that you reference is not the issue Murtha’s idiocy has brought to the fore. They exist independently of each other and should be so examined.
Come on — take a side. You know you want to. Really how could you defend such a ridiculous assertion as Idiot has just made? It would ruin your credibility.
Murtha: senior moment?
dougf — “come on, take a side..”
My mom’s dealing w/ cancer, and I notice how doctors deal w/ their options: they try something for awhile, they measure results, and if it doesn’t seem to be working, at some point THEY ADMIT THIS IS THE CASE, and they TRY SOMETHING ELSE.
So, I’ll take a stand and say I’m still inclined to measure results for awhile longer, and to give the Iraqi “government” and the “Iraqi” security forces till the end of this year to prove they are for real, not smoke and mirrors. Then it’ll be showtime — the time to start to bring home the troops, to pull back the curtain and see just how mighty the Wizard of Oz.
My mom’s dealing w/ cancer–Markus
My sympathies. Important things– unimportant things.
Hope everything works out a well as can be hoped.
This guy has worked real hard to change his status from “former Marine” to “ex-Marine.”
Dougf — thanks. Yup, the big C puts it all in perspective.
I think its important, though, to still enjoy the fun, but not so important things.
The real question about Murtha is .. why does the ranking member and former chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, who gets more political contributions from defense contractors than anyone else on the subcommittee, including Republicans, act like this ?
Some say it has something to do with his brother who is a lobbyist.
Murtha is the guy who told Clinton it would be a good idea to abandon Somalia, in fact he brags about that today. He also thought it was a good idea to pull the Marines out of Lebanon after the attack on there left hundreds dead.
When Osama came out with his fatwa in 1996 he named these two incidents as being evidence that Americans can not fight and will not fight and can be easily driven away.
So I have questions about Murths’s judgment long before today. But I do think there is something wrong with the man.
Roger:
The problem I have with Murtha is the illusion of “gradual” pullout and “redployment” in Okinawa. Let’s call a spade a spade. If he thinks our troops in Iraq are the problem then we should pull out ASAP. If the Iraq securtiy forces are not ready to take over and prevent a full blown country wide civil war then we need to stay until the have their troops prepared to take over. Gradual pullout is a half ass excuse for retreat. If Mutha thinks the Lebanon example of Reagan is the way to go then lets do it. Reagan didn’t gradually pullout. He ran like hell. And of course Syria occupied Lebabnon for the next 20 years. This gradual mantra is just a cover so the authors of this strategy are afraid to state what they believe, We lost and we are getting out. I have yet to hear them say, “Yes, in X number of months the Iraq security forces will be able to take over and we can leave.” And if they think that there is no way to win then we should split now and not waste one more life for our wounded pride. If we have lost and if we are the source of the violence, the unavoidable logic of their argument, then why the delay? Why gradual? They don’t seem to have faith in their argument so they decorate it with false bravado.
My problem with the Congressman is his reasoning, rhetoric, and judgment.
Item: The whole Okinawa thing is bizarre, unworkable and betrays a lack of full appreciation of geography and logistics, among other things.
Item: The premature labeling of Marines subject to the Military Justice system as “cold blooded murders”.
Item: The reference to the brisk Somalia exit as an example of good military judgment.
I am not willing to question either his past heroism or his current patriotism. I am willing to question the wisdom of following this sort of advice, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, really dumb.
vnjagvet:
Redpolyment and Okinawa is a smokescreen. The idea that the milatary could use Okinawa as a staging area is absurd. When murtha says redployment he tries to imply that there is some miltary value to having the troops there regarding Iraq when everyone knows that he is simply saying we are gone and not coming back. And of course the idea that having the troops deployed in any other Middle eastern country is a joke also. That would just shift the jihad efforts to those countries and our troops would be under fire there and it would also give propaganda tools to the jihad regarding western ‘occupation’ of the countries they would be shifted to. Murtha is signaling a retreat and a admission of defeat but he doesn’t have the guts to simply say so and he tries to gussy up his advice as military strategy. At least the ‘pull out now’ advice of the Kucinich and kos crowd is honest, if misguided and tragic. Murtha doesn’t have the guts to come out and say what he really wants and he is trying to couch it in terms that hide his ‘get out know and we are not coming back, good luck no matter what the results are” strategy. I disagree with the cut and run crowd but I at least respect those who make those arguments in an upfront manner and don’t try to pretend that they are making an argument for a continued fight with weasel words such as gradual and redployment.
Murtha is incoherent because the Democrats are incoherent. It doesn’t matter if it is Murtha, Cindy Sheehan, Kerry, Kos, Hillary! Clinton, Michael Moore, Reid or Pelosi – there isn’t one coherent thought about Iraq or the larger war on terror they can articulate.
Oh, they’re really good about standing up for what they’re against – the current Iraq policy – but when it comes to something sensible, they’ve got nothing. Sure, some have variations of cut and run, and one, Hillary!, at least recognizes that cut and run means minority status for Democrats for the duration of the war on terror – but that’s about it.
And, like a gateway drug, the more they use it, the less impact it has, so they’ve got to ramp up the rhetoric to the point where a retired Marine Corps officer accuses his country of being the most dangerous on earth to peace.
But we dare not question his or their patriotism, eh?
Kevin:
Even the smokescreen is absurd on its face.
Which is why attacks on patriotism, heroism, political philosophy and the like are kinda beside the point.
When people appear to take these points seriously, even if they were coming from the mouths of ex generals, it shows their own lack of seriousness of purpose and transparent political opportunism to appeal to an irrational segment of the political landscape.
Exactly. The combination of stupidity with a complete lack of seriousness makes the patriotism rather a moot point. Heck, if I were an anti-patriot, I’d be upset about these guys giving me a bad name.
When you rely on Matt Drudge for your news, which happens all too frequently around here, you will be made to look a fool.
If anyone took the time to notice, there was never a direct quote attributed to Murtha purporting to say what our host suggested he said. Why not? Because he never said it. Now comes this correction from the Sun-Sentinal:
Correction: An article in Sunday’s editions misinterpreted a comment from U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., at a town hall meeting in North Miami on Saturday. In his speech, Murtha said U.S. credibility was suffering because of continued U.S. military presence in Iraq ,and the perception that the U.S. is an occupying force. Murtha was citing a recent poll, by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, that indicates a greater percentage of people in 10 of 14 foreign countries consider the U.S. in Iraq a greater danger to world peace than any threats posed by Iran or North Korea.
“When you rely on Matt Drudge for your news, which happens all too frequently around here, you will be made to look a fool.”
One waits with baited breathe for a suggestion on where to get one’s news that will not make one look the fool.
One also wonders why Murtha felt that the cite he made was relevant to his point, hmm?
“One waits with baited breathe for a suggestion on where to get one’s news that will not make one look the fool.”
“The first principle is you must not fool yourself — and you are the easist person to fool.”
– Richard Feynman
If you don’t think it’s relevant, when weighing the pros and cons of the Iraq War, to examine the war’s damage to our international presitge, then you’re fooling yourself.
I notice that the question quoted was not answered. It’s amazing how easy it is to snipe when someone is completely unwilling to propose a solution themselves. Typical.
I don’t give a rat’s ass about “international prestige”. It’s done nothing to keep Americans safe, except when backed by the kind of strength that isn’t typically considered useful by the kind of fools that blather about “international prestige”.