Murtha’s Mutineers
By Repair Man Jack Posted in Archived — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
[Promoted from diaries by haystack because Murtha & the slow bleed need to be constantly remembered in the Iraq Debate.
note-we're not big fans of the choice of words in the last sentence of this piece. Take it as the metaphor it is...besides...a little RID is surely prescribed here.]
The Democrats will do John Murtha’s bidding. He owns them. It’s over. The House of Representatives will vote to defund the Iraq War, Mitch McConnell will have to fight a battle royal to prevent that sentiment from carrying the senate.
There are those who would ask if I’m from Planet Murtha and they may even wonder if I’ve responsibly redeployed my common sense to Okinawa. When the new congress organized, Murtha was elected dog that runs behind Steny Hoyer. He should be the man whose view stays the same every day.
More Below the fold...
This would hold true; except for one small thing. Murtha espouses the only fully-developed system of beliefs currently in circulation amongst The American Left. I’m not claiming these are admirable beliefs; I don’t even credit them with being particularly intelligent ones. It’s just that there is a ‘there’ there.
Murtha came out against the war almost as early as Howard Dean and has stayed against the war. He may or may not have a small mind, but his consistency on this issue is no mere hobgoblin. It has morphed into a troll and it lies in wait beneath that bridge known as The House Armed Services Committee. President Bush will have to surge across that bridge, at some point, and Murtha will pounce.
While Murtha won’t get elected to anything more powerful than a seat in The House of Representatives, he will dictate the Optempo of the 2008 Democratic Primary. Even now, in early 2007, he already has. Murtha has outlined a platform that will cut the Iraq War off without exposing his party to the public choice of cutting the funding off.
Murtha will oversee the $93 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan that the House will consider in mid-March. And he wants to impose new restrictions on how the president can deploy combat forces from the United States to Iraq, allow combat veterans to have at least one year stateside before returning to the frontlines and prevent the Pentagon from keeping soldiers and Marines already in Iraq in uniform after their enlistments expire.
“This vote will limit the options of the president and should stop the surge,” Murtha predicted of next month’s floor fight over the wartime supplemental appropriation. “We’re trying to force redeployment [of troops outside Iraq], not by taking money away but by redirecting it.”
This would cause unmitigated disasters throughout the Middle East, and ultimately bring war back home to the United States, as the emboldened Mujihadeen crossed our borders with the same ease that they crossed Russian lines in Afghanistan. But no one in The Democratic Party can point that out without getting hammered like Joe Liebermann or Joe Biden.
The Murtha Faction demands this willful blindness from anyone who wants a chance at The Democratic Party nomination in 2008. When this faction demands, the candidates pander. John Edwards has gone from voting pro-war in 2002, to issuing a statement claiming Israel was the most dangerous nation in the world. It’s nice to know John CAIRs.
Not to be outdone, Barack Oprahbama has called American combat deaths in Iraq “wasted lives.” He scurried back from that one, as soon as it crossed his lips, but somewhere in the background, Murtha wears the same smug grin as the Cheshire Cat. John Murtha must love it when Obama reminds audiences that he didn’t vote to go to Iraq, Hillary and Edwards did.
Hillary not only voted for the war, she also vocally supported it. She essentially used her husband’s old “push-off strategy” and made Howard Dean her own personal Sistah Soljah. For a time, that worked. Now she’s trying to get left of John Murtha. He’ll let her get past him for a small fee.
So Jack Murtha won’t run for President. He won’t even attempt Speaker of The House. But, why should he? He has the power and holds the door keys. All war money goes through him and because of that, so does the road to the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination.
Mort Kondrake laments this sad state of affairs.
”It's unfortunately clear that the Democratic Party lacks any candidate representing the foreign-policy toughness of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson. But do its candidates want to follow in the footsteps of Carter and Kerry?”
Mort can complain all he wants. He’ll be lucky if he gets to talk to John Murtha’s hand, rather than just one of its fingers. Murtha has survived scandal, strife and a large, unhealthy dose of his own pugnacious stupidity to get where he is today.
He won’t play nicely to make Hillary Rodham Clinton’s life more pleasant. Nor will he conveniently vanish for the sake of Harry Reid. He’d rather eat a bug than back down. George W. Bush will find that getting rid of Saddam Hussein and Muqtada al Sadr was easy compared to killing the head louse known as John Murtha.
Suppose for the sake of argument that in 2009 we have a President Hillary/Obama/Edwards but a Republican Congress. (Yeah I know the odds are slim for that combo, but bear with me.)
What if the Congress passed funding for and resolutions demanding we invade Iran or North Korea or Timbuktu. Would the Dem President feel obligated to comply, or would she/he say "Screw you guys I'm the C-in-C and that's MY call!" And would the press be clamoring about Congress overstepping its bounds or about the President being obstinate?
Those are no-brainers right? Well how is that any different than what's happening today? You'd think there was a double standard or something....
All it takes to derail this train is one veto
I'm not sure the veto/filibuster would help all that much in this case. Unfortunately (and mind you, I'm no expert here), Bush has funded the entire war off budget. So if the DOD budget (with the now included war funding) is vetoed or doesn't pass for whatever reason, the funding for the war ends. Because the war funding was all supplemental, the typical process to keep the money flowing when a budget isn't passed won't work here (as I under it).
If the Dems offer up two options to Bush 1) here's half of what you asked for (50 some billion) plus a requirement you bring half the troops home - now, or 2) because you vetoed the bill, you get nada, bring ALL the troops home now, I'm not sure Bush can do much but call the Dems a bunch of surrender monkeys and pick either a half retreat or a full retreat. And with the polls numbers the way they are at the moment, I don't think the Dems care all that much if Bush calls them a bunch of surrender monkeys.
What a sad state of affairs.
and get the defense bill passed, or the troops continue without a budget, or the Dems persist in defunding the troops and cause immediate withdrawal, which they have explicitly said is not their objective.
A risky, but less higher-stakes strategy would be to veto any other spending bills until the president gets a defense bill he could sign. If that means another shutdown, so be it. I think the people will stand with him. In war, you support the troops FIRST.
These strategies would force the Spineless Seventeen to reconsider their status as Pelosicans, an added benefit.
I am not a budget expert either. But this is a knife fight, and W needs to bring a knife. The veto is one of the sharpest he has.
Oops, I'm not supposed to call you that, am I. Well, you'll just have to bring it to the Council of Elders at the next Gathering.
The Academy: researching the Illiberal Arts
I'd take out that last line though. We're above that, and if a Kos diarist said something comprable, we would condemn them for it.
De Opresso Liber
he is powerful.
I am (was) from his district. I have family there and go back from time-to-time.
Murtha maintains his political power back in the tri-county area simply because of the faux financial/business infrastructure he constructed over the past 30 years with funds he pirated from the defense budget.
No actual industry lives in his district. There are some few, small manufacturing companies and all the rest seem to be associated with the business of medical research and actual patient treatment and management. Everywhere in Johnstown and around the district you'll see signs that this or that other bridge, building or garbage was given to you by Jack and Joyce Murtha.
God! What a minimum wage fiefdom!
So, if Murtha wishes to strum defense funding to his own tune, let's hope some prescient Bushie either in the White House or Cabinet whispers in the dolt's ear that what goes around comes around.
What about it? Any ideas.
but the commentary is also spot on.
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Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes