Fund shreds Murtha, exposes Dems

In today’s Wall Street Journal John Fund again demonstrates why he is one of the best reporters in America. Fund exposes Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s recent statements as dangerous folly and political opportunism and leaves us wondering when, if ever, the Dems will get serious about America’s security. Excerpts:

The day after Mr. McCain articulated why many voters see Republicans as inconsistent and ineffective, a leading Democrat, speaking in Miami, made it crystal clear why his party is an unacceptable alternative.

Pennsylvania's Rep. John Murtha, who became a hero to the antiwar left when he called in November for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, went further at a town hall meeting for Rep. Kendrick Meek. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel quoted Mr. Murtha as claiming that the "American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran."

He also told the audience of 200 that "we want as many Americans out of [Iraq] as possible" because "we have become the enemy."

Mr. Murtha has been sticking his foot in his mouth a lot lately. He accused Marines in Iraq of murdering civilians "in cold blood," contradicted himself in the same breath by saying they had "overreacted," and asserted that higher-ups covered up the purported crime without backing his statements up.

He told a startled Tim Russert of NBC that U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq could be "redeployed" to Okinawa, Japan, whence they could return "very quickly" to Baghdad--which is 4,899 miles away. And more than once he has offered these examples of presidential leadership: "In Beirut, President Reagan changed direction. In Somalia, President Clinton changed direction."

Here's another take on the change of direction in Somalia: "After a few blows . . . [the U.S.] rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers." That was Osama bin Laden, in an ABC interview in 1998, the same year al Qaeda blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, murdering more than 220. […]

"Mr. Murtha sounds less like a Marine colonel these days, and more like a male Cindy Sheehan," writes Jack Kelly of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which circulates in Mr. Murtha's district.

But all the adulation from left-wing bloggers has apparently convinced the 74-year-old Mr. Murtha that he has a shot at higher office. "The more he gets out there, the more he realizes that he truly has taken on a leadership role," a Murtha aide told Time magazine. This month he told his colleagues that he plans to run for majority leader, the No. 2 job in the House, if Democrats take control this November.

It is assumed he would have the tacit or open support of many close allies of the current minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, who won a leadership post in 2001 in large part because Mr. Murtha was her campaign manager and convinced some moderates she was not an antimilitary left-winger.

So Murtha convinced some moderates Pelosi is not an antimilitary left-winger.

I'll bet they're some of the same moderates who still believe Clinton didn't have sex with Monica.

Back to Fund:

If Jack Murtha, a backroom operator who is blunder-prone when speaking publicly, is Democrats' idea of fresh leadership, the party is in real trouble. Far from advancing the Democratic argument that Republicans have bred a "culture of corruption" while in power, Mr. Murtha's leadership bid would open a Pandora's box of questions about his own record.

Fund details Murtha’s involvement in the 1980 Abscam scandal in which the prosecutors named him an “unindicted co-conspirator:”

In direct contrast to Sen. McCain, whose experience in the 1990 Keating Five scandal turned him into a good-government reformer, Mr. Murtha's brush with infamy stirred in him a pit-bull conviction that members of Congress deserve more protection from ethics probes. […]

[Murtha] unsuccessfully pushed for a law that would require the Justice Department to reimburse the legal bills of any member of Congress it investigated if it was shown the probe was not "substantially justified"--a privilege no other American has.

Small wonder that Gary Ruskin, director of the liberal Congressional Accountability Project, told Roll Call that "when it comes to institutional policing of corruption in Congress, John Murtha is a one-man wrecking crew."

A Harper's magazine study has concluded that "the most effective ally for the [pork barrel ] earmark-seeker is a lobbyist who is actually related, by blood or marriage, to a powerful member of an appropriations committee."

Rep. Murtha is the ranking Democratic member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and for the past three years has been the House's top recipient of defense industry cash. Therefore, few in Washington are surprised that his lobbyist brother, Robert "Kit" Murtha, is an enormously successful "earmark specialist" for the Beltway firm KSA Consulting.

There’s a lot more in the same vein before Fund concludes:

[Not] enough attention has been given to how much Democrats are flopping in their attempts to provide a better alternative [to Republicans].

By pushing forward Rep. Murtha as a fresh leader for their party, [the Dems] are reinforcing the worst stereotype many swing voters have of a congressional Democrat: a big spender tarnished by scandal who holds wacky foreign-policy views.

So if I help make Nancy Pelosi House Speaker, I may get John Murtha as House Majority Leader.

Quick! Will somebody show me the Republican lever.

As for not much attention being paid to how the Dems are flopping in their attempts to provide a better alternative to the GOP, I'm sure Fund knows why just as most of us do:Most MSM spins for the Dems and don't want them exposed.

That’s why, when Murtha started getting headlines last November for his cut-and-run from Iraq proposals, MSM didn’t remind us he was an “unindicted co-conspirator” and ran one of the largest family pork farms on Capital Hill.

I hope you agree Fund is one of the best reporters in America.

Can you imagine what this country would be like if there were 50 or so just like him scatted throughout CBS, NYT, WaPo, AP, NPR; and they were free to write what they knew?

Be sure to read all of Fund’s “Worst of All Worlds.”
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