The Republican Slogan Of The Moment
Pass. The. Popcorn.
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Democrats | Featured Stories — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Never interfere with your enemies when they are in the process of destroying themselves (read on--all emphases mine):
The intensifying fight for the No. 2 Democratic leadership job in the House is evolving into an early test of the power of the incoming House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, after her decision to throw her public support behind Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Murtha, widely considered an underdog to Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the current second-ranking Democrat, sought on Monday to use a new letter of support from Ms. Pelosi to gain ground, asking for new pledges from Democrats who converged on Washington after their decisive midterm election victory.
Mr. Murtha and his allies said the role he played in questioning the war in Iraq had helped legitimize Democratic opposition to the war and turn it into a winning campaign issue, making him the natural choice for majority leader at a time when Iraq policy will dominate Congress.
"When the public speaks, things are going to change," Mr. Murtha, a decorated Vietnam veteran, said on Monday.
Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Murtha are similar in some respects, both veterans of the byzantine appropriations process and skilled in winning money for local projects in the annual spending bills. While Mr. Murtha has been closely allied with Ms. Pelosi against the war, he is well to the right of her on many social issues like abortion and gun control and is known for his ability to work with conservatives in both parties. Mr. Hoyer is more liberal over all on social issues but is considered a pro-business Democrat.
While Mr. Hoyer has been a fixture in the party leadership, Mr. Murtha eschewed the spotlight and seemed content to wield his considerable influence well behind the scenes until he took a highly publicized stand against the war.
But Mr. Murtha is also coming under the spotlight on another subject that dominated the campaign: Congressional ethics. He helped block changes in ethics policies that Democrats proposed last year. He has also been an astute backroom-deal maker known for trading votes for the pet projects known as earmarks. He has had family members who lobbied on issues under his control, and he was caught up in the Abscam corruption scandal more than 25 years ago, though he was never charged.
The leader of one watchdog group said Monday that Mr. Murtha's record should disqualify him for the No. 2 job, particularly since Democrats campaigned so hard against Republican corruption and have promised to make new ethics and lobbying rules a priority.
"How can Americans believe that the Democrats will return integrity to the House when future Speaker Pelosi has endorsed an ethically challenged member for a leadership position?" asked Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a Democratic-leaning group that focuses on government integrity. "Representative Murtha is the wrong choice for this job."
Never interfere with your enemies when they are in the process of destroying themselves:
LOYALTY IS an admirable quality, but sometimes it can be taken too far. That is the case with the decision by the incoming House speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to offer a public endorsement of the bid of Pennsylvania Rep. John P. Murtha (D) to become majority leader. Ms. Pelosi's preference for Mr. Murtha was no secret; he managed her campaign for minority leader against Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), now Mr. Murtha's rival for the majority leader post. What was surprising was that Ms. Pelosi would weigh in publicly on Mr. Murtha's behalf, albeit -- as she pointedly noted at the beginning of her letter -- in response to his request.
On the merits, Mr. Hoyer is by far the better choice for the job. He is a moderate and highly capable legislator whose selection would reinforce Ms. Pelosi's announced commitment to govern from the center.
Mr. Murtha's candidacy is troubling for several reasons, beginning with his position on the war in Iraq. A former Marine, Mr. Murtha deserves credit for sounding an alarm about the deteriorating situation a year ago. But his descriptions of the stakes there have been consistently unrealistic, and his solutions irresponsible. Just last week he denied that the United States was fighting terrorism in Iraq, though al-Qaeda is known to play a major part in the insurgency. He said the United States should abandon even the effort to train the Iraqi army and should "redeploy as soon as practicable," an extreme step that most congressional Democrats oppose. He claimed that "stability in the Middle East, stability in Iraq," would come from such an abrupt withdrawal; in fact, virtually all Iraqi and Middle Eastern leaders have said that it would lead to a greatly escalated conflict that could spread through the region.
Mr. Murtha would also be the wrong choice as majority leader after an election in which a large number of voters expressed unhappiness with Washington business as usual. Mr. Murtha has been a force against stronger ethics and lobbying rules. He was one of just four Democrats whose votes helped kill a strong Democratic package of lobbying reforms this spring.
As a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, he has been an avid participant in the orgy of earmarking, including numerous projects sought by a lobbying firm that employed his brother. During the Abscam congressional bribery investigation in 1980, Mr. Murtha was videotaped discussing a bribe with an undercover FBI agent. ("You know, we do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't, you know," Mr. Murtha said.) He wasn't indicted, but it's fair to say the episode raised questions about his integrity.
House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi's endorsement of Rep. John P. Murtha's bid for House majority leader set off a furor yesterday on Capitol Hill, with critics charging that she is undercutting her pledge to clean up corruption by backing a veteran lawmaker who they say has repeatedly skirted ethical boundaries.
Pelosi (D-Calif.) directly intervened in the heated contest between Murtha (D-Pa.) and House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) on Sunday by circulating a letter to Democratic lawmakers. The letter voiced her support for Murtha and put her prestige on the line in a closely fought leadership battle. Some Democratic lawmakers and watchdog groups say they are baffled that Pelosi would go out of her way to back Murtha's candidacy after pledging to make the new 110th Congress the most ethical and corruption-free in history.
Murtha, a longtime senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has battled accusations over the years that he has traded federal spending for campaign contributions, that he has abused his post as ranking party member on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, and that he has stood in the way of ethics investigations. Those charges come on top of Murtha's involvement 26 years ago in the FBI's Abscam bribery sting.
"Pelosi's endorsement suggests to me she was interested in the culture of corruption only as a campaign issue and has no real interest in true reform," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a Democratic-leaning group. "It is shocking to me that someone with [Murtha's] ethics problems could be number two in the House leadership."
"People have known about these things for months," said one Democratic House member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to anger the presumed incoming speaker. "I am sure they are going to become much more important in the next few days."
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The Republican Slogan Of The Moment 17 Comments (0 topical, 17 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
when he won the White House? Sounds like her promise will be just as true as his was.
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Bipartisanship = give + take. Republicans give. Democrats take.
When they say that some Democrats are baffled, they must mean those Democrats who actually took Pelosi at her word on the whole ethics thing. Silly Democrats.
But then the NYT had this little nugget:
Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Murtha are similar in some respects, both veterans of the byzantine appropriations process and skilled in winning money for local projects in the annual spending bills.
So when Ted Stevens gets the bridge to nowhere, it's a shameful frittering of public funds, but Hoyer and Murtha are "winning money" like they were canny gamblers or playing some manner of national lottery. Yeesh.
When all else fails, simply revel in the absurdity of it all.
but the press is certainly fair (other than FNC). If you don't believe it, just ask them.
They'll soon be hitting Pelosi with tough questions, like "Why aren't you doing more to get Bush impeached?"
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Bipartisanship = give + take. Republicans give. Democrats take.
Look, I'm hoping Murtha does not get our majority leader position for exactly the reasons mentioned. But I think it's typical of the Beltway cocktail-party gossip crowd to turn this into a huge deal. It seems that in a post-election atmosphere, this is what passes for a "big story."
I knew this would happen, but man, so soon?
Not hardly a week and wow!
Keep it up guys!
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/16030-1.html
Murtha Calls Ethics Bill ‘Total Crap’
By John Bresnahan
Roll Call Staff
Wednesday, Nov. 15; 1:18 pm
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) told a group of Democratic moderates on Tuesday that an ethics and lobbying reform bill being pushed by party leaders was “total crap,” but said that he would work to enact the legislation because Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) supports it.
Murtha: Sorry Nan. I really did my best. It just wasn't going to happen. You know how this place works.
(stunned expression on her face(more than normal)) (thought balloon) I split the party and violated the decorum of the house to back this idiot ?
Sorry forgot about angle brackets
Murtha Calls Ethics Bill "Total Crap"
Wednesday, Nov. 15; 1:14 pm
By John Bresnahan,
Roll Call Staff
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) told a group of Democratic moderates on Tuesday that an ethics and lobbying reform bill being pushed by party leaders was "total crap," but said that he would work to enact the legislation because Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) supports it.
Murtha and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are locked in a battle for the House Majority Leader post, and both men made presentations for to the Blue Dog Coalition on Tuesday in a bid for their votes.
"Even though I think it¹s total crap, I'll vote for it and pass it because that's what Nancy wants," Murtha told the Blue Dogs, according to three sources who were at the meeting...
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18056
In 1980, Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator in a massive bribery probe -- in which undercover FBI agents videotaped Murtha entertaining a $50,000 bribe from agents posing as emissaries for Arab sheiks trying to enter our country illegally....
But only recently have we been reminded of Abscam transcripts that paint an even uglier picture of Murtha than the short snippet of publicly available FBI video in which Murtha turned down the bribe. As noted by The American Spectator, an old Jack Anderson column reported these little-noticed parts of Murtha's conversation with the undercover agents:
"I want to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions at all, period. . . . After we've done some business, well, then I might change my mind. . . . "
. . . "I'm going to tell you this. If anybody can do it -- I'm not B.S.-ing you fellows -- I can get it done my way." he boasted. "There's no question about it." . . .
But the reluctant Murtha wouldn't touch the $50,000. Here on secret videotape was this all-American hero, tall and dignified in a disheveled way, explaining why he wasn't quite ready to accept the cash.
"All at once," he said, "some dumb [expletive deleted] would go start talking eight years from now about this whole thing and say [expletive deleted], this happened. Then in order to get immunity so he doesn't go to jail, he starts talking and fingering people. So the [S.O.B.] falls apart." . . .
"You give us the banks where you want the money deposited," offered one of the bagmen.
"All right," agreed Murtha. "How much money we talking about?"
"Well, you tell me."
"Well, let me find out what is a reasonable figure that will get their attention," said Murtha, "because there are a couple of banks that have really done me some favors in the past, and I'd like to put some money in. . . . ["]
is blathering on TV if some reporter had the guts to ask him, "Is this how you really feel about it or is that just what Aunt Nancy told you to say?" His head would explode.
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Bipartisanship = give + take. Republicans give. Democrats take.
In his first interview since reportedly calling a Democratic bill on lobbying and ethics "total crap," Rep. John Murtha told "Hardball" host Chris Matthews he meant it was "crap" to deal with ethics problems when there are more serious issues facing the nation such as the war in Iraq.
"It is total crap that we have to deal with an issue like this when we’ve got a war going on and we got all these other issues," Murtha said.
...
MATTHEWS: Are you going to win?
MURTHA: We’re going to win, we’ve got the votes.
MATTHEWS: You’ve got them?
MURTHA: We’ve got the votes.
MATTHEWS: Eyeball to eyeball, you’ve got them?
MURTHA: Eyeball to eyeball.
Mr. Ethics, John Murtha, talks about his interest in taking bribes from undercover FBI agents 26 years ago, and the Democratic cash in the freezer scandal:
msnbc.com / Chris Matthews asking questions
MATTHEWS: But did you smell corruption in that conversation?
MURTHA: Sure. I saw these guys were trying to corrupt me and trying to...
MATTHEWS: ... Did you think they were legitimate emissaries for an Arab big shot or did you think they were...
MURTHA: They were the slimiest guys I’ve ever seen.
MATTHEWS: Well why didn’t you walk out of the room the minute you met them?
MURTHA: Well listen, they said they were going to invest in the district.
MATTHEWS: I understand the constituent service part of it. I understand that. But the tricky part of this is to say I’m not interested, which meant you didn’t want to have anything to do with these slime balls, as you saw them, but then you said “at this point.” Was that just a way of finessing your way out of the conversation?
MURTHA: Exactly, exactly. I deal with people like this all the time. I wanted to find a way to move towards a negotiation to investment.
MATTHEWS: Did you know they had already paid two other members off?
MURTHA: I had no idea.
MATTHEWS: Even when they were talking about we’ve give 50, the one guy, 50 to the other guy?
MURTHA: I ignored that completely. I paid no attention to that at all.
MATTHEWS: It didn’t mean anything to you?
MURTHA: It didn’t mean...
MATTHEWS: ... It didn’t mean Thompson and Murphy were involved? OK, you weren’t charged, right?
MURTHA: Exactly.
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MATTHEWS: You think it was wrong for the FBI to go into Bill Jefferson’s office and find the 90 k ($90,000) in cold cash in his refrigerator? Is that fair use of governmental power?
MURTHA: I don’t know enough about the circumstances. I know that it’s not fair—
MATTHEWS: Well, they caught the bad guy.
MURTHA: Well, let me put it this way: it’s not fair to go into congressional offices without going through the Speaker of the House, without going to the minority leader. This is a breech of the separation of powers.
HOYER WINS LEADERSHIP BID: Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.) has beaten Rep. John Murtha (Pa.) in the race for House Majority Leader for the 110th Congress. Hoyer received 149 votes, Murtha 86.
rollcall.com
If someone wrote this in a fiction book, no publisher would buy it because it is so unrealistic:
A week after democrats win both houses of congress for supposedly being more ethical, over a third of their caucus votes for someone to be their leader who just called their speaker's ethics bill "crap", and then defended it on TV by saying that there are more important things to work on than ethics. Unreal.
I do think this funny given Pelosi's "Most ethcial congress ever" pledge. She is off to a great start, I won't be holding my breath waiting for the new ethics rules that will clean up congress.