Via Politico’s Twitter feed — Congressman John Murtha has died.
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I’ll keep my silence as to my opinion of the person, but I hope at least this means his private airport can be taken off the public dole.
Two thoughts immediately spring to mind. Tom Hanks (playing Charlie Wilson) giving his vote on Murtha so he can sit on the board of the Kennedy center…. and Pork…. LOTS of pork.
However disagreeable he was as apolitician he was an honorable member of the military where he served with distinction for which we should at least be grateful.
OK nicities out of the way… who get his seat?
He did serve honorably as a combat vet.
Now I think there will have to be a special election to fill the seat. Not sure if the Constitution or Pa. law allows appointments for empty HoR seats.
As far as I know the Constitution requires House vacancies to be filled by special election. The theory is that a House of Representatives shouldn’t have appointees voting in it.
The rules allowing appointment to fill Senate vacancies, I believe, pre-date the 18th Amendment, which means they originated from the time when Senators were appointed anyway.
D’oh! 17th Amendment, not 18th. Though if it were Ted Kennedy’s seat we were talking about…
My sympathies to his family. Sad that he did not retire to spend time with them, instead of clinging to power a little longer. Ironically, just two days ago he “achieved” the longest Congressional service in PA history, just beating out the equally corrupt, and indicted, Joe McDade from Scranton.
Pennsylvania requires a special election be called in no less than sixty days, so it will probably be during the regularly-scheduled primaries. I think this year it’s May 18.
Murtha’s district is a hard case, all that government pork has kept the population even more servile and backward-looking than they already were inclined to be. They truly have no idea how to, or interest in, progressing by making their region attractive and economically competitive. Younger people stick around to be just like their elders, or leave for college and rarely return. They will look, frightened, for another pork-daddy.
Of course, Pennsylvania will lose at least one congressional district after the census and redistricting, so the boundaries are likely to change and whoever is elected may well be a short-timer. Kind of like ten years ago when redistricting pitted Murtha against his neighboring Democrat, the ludicrous Frank Mascara (yep, really) in a combined-district primary.
As a vet, I don’t care if Murtha was a veteran. He showed himself to be an amoral swine with his remarks about our men in the service.
Don’t forget that Benedict Arnold was a “war hero.”
OK, now I’ll go out on a limb and say that this will DEFINITELY impact his re-election bid…..
http://pajamasmedia.com/vodkapundit/2010/02/05/give-them-all-the-boot/#comment-1
Winner! Coffee out my nose! Thanks jaymaster
I have to agree with Sven Svenson, #7. Murtha showed his disrespect for the Military in his comments regarding the Marines he trashed. May have served honorable but, he sure forgot what being an HONORABLE service member was all about.
Benedict Arnold was also probably innocent.
OK Nathan… What the hell. I’m in the mood for some revisionist history… I’ll bite. Link Please.
Why of course he was probably innocent. A Major General in the Continental Army who becomes a Brigadier General in the British Army does that in the most innocent of fashion. Sorta like when Patton decided to start fighting for the Germans in WW II.
You may now pull you head out of your anal sphincter.
Sven, you forgot the part where Patton offered to betray the Allies in return for a big, fat paycheck.
Murtha presents a challenge to one’s judgment. On the one hand, he served long, honorably, and well in the Marines. He later volunteered (as a Marine Reservist) for service in Vietnam, where he served “as a battalion staff officer (S-2 Intelligence Section), receiving the Bronze Star with Valor device, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.” (Wiki)
That said, he arguably stained his record by his grandstanding with respect to the Haditha Marines. Where does one draw the line?
Randy Cunningham is probably one of the last combat aviator aces the United States will ever see, unless they start counting computers. That said, he was convicted of bribery and corruption. To what degree does that erase Cunningham’s Navy service? To press the point home, to what degree will conservatives forgive Cunningham, yet condemn Murtha?
Both men served honorably and well during the Vietnam War, and both fell afoul of their own greed and ambition. There’s a saying going around some of the milblogs right now: de mortuis nil nisi bonum.
There’s no reason to pile on now. Let’s salute the mans’ service, then move on. Pun intended.