Is Jack Murtha a Rovian creation?
By Mark Kilmer Posted in Democrats — Comments (42) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
We're witnessing something spectacular these days in the person of Jack Murtha. Watching him yesterday morning on Meet the Press [transcript] was like viewing an anomaly, a confirmation that the dreaded parallel universe does exist and that people from there visit us from time to time.
MURTHA TO RUSSERT: "And if you’re not winning, if you’re losing, and that’s what’s happening. We’re, we’re—when I say losing, we’re, we’re losing ground over there and, and we have inadequate forces. We went in, the first place, we didn’t have any reason to go in. We didn’t have a threat to our national security. That’s been proven. Second, we went—inadequate forces to get it under control in a transition to peace. Third, the third thing was, no exit strategy.
That's BushLied™ from the cue cards, delivered in that uniquely Jack Murtha manner. I think that if you read between his lines, you'll find the kitchen sink.
Here are my MTP show notes from yesterday's Sunday Show Review:
(more...)
JACK MURTHA AND TIM RUSSERT. I could describe them as "sitting in a tree," but Murtha was a guest on Russert's NBC vehicle, Meet the Press. Out of the chute, Russert said that the Administrations only plan was "stay the course." Murtha shot back that "stay the course is stay-and-pay." The war costs a lot which we could be spending on social programs, he argued, and our troops just can't take the hassles.
"It's worse now than it was six months ago," when his fifteen minutes of fame began, Murtha asserted, amending that to a concern that it is "at least as bad."
Murtha conceded that it was important internationally for us to win the war in Iraq, which is why, he asserted, we should withdraw our troops and internationalize the effort
.
Russert quoted Murtha from 2004, declaring that it would send the wrong message if we cut and run. "There comes a time," Murtha told Tim Russert this morning, "when you have to change direction." {Turn tail.)
"We're losing," Murtha declared.
Not enough troops, Murtha argued, no exit strategy.
Murtha forecast that the President himself will soon have an exit strategy, a date certain.
He urged the President to follow the example of President Reagan in Beirut after the barracks were attacked in 1983, of Clinton in Somalia after the ambush at Mogadishu in 1993. We have to "reassess," Jack Murtha declared. Turn tail. Become the paper tiger.
Russert played for Murtha clip of Karl Rove stating that if we had followed Murtha's direction and fled Iraq in April, we would not have killed Zarqawi. Murtha responded that Zarqawi was overhyped and that he was killed by people outside Iraq. He explained this by saying that the intelligence which led to the attack was Iraqi and we flew in on a plane which was either outside Iraq or could have been. (He was not clear.)
He declared that the Iraqi government was not the government of Iraq, but was the government of the Green Zone. Something like: It's nice that they have a democratic structure, but it's in the Green Zone, not in Iraq.
Murtha has decided that we must raise taxes to pay for the war. He has decided that two-thirds of Democrats agree with his position on the war. Murtha has decided that democracy "won't happen" in Iraq. The key, he said, is "international diplomacy." The United States is "recruiting terrorists in Iraq," Murtha argued.
Russert asked if all Democrats should do what John Kerry did last week: admit that they made a mistake if they voted for the war. Murtha thinks they should. "What is their plan? They have no plan!"
Murtha argued that as we stand down, the Iraqis will stand up.
In comments, "Hoover" pointed out:
[Y] you didn't mention the most head scratching moment from Murtha. I almost fell over when he got into the we need to redeploy (run like the French), blah, blah blah. He started to naming places, Kuwait (a little small to host 120k troops), Qatar and Okinawa, Japan. He said just the troops should run for the hills, who knows where the equipment will go. If Russert was half the reporter his thinks he is, he would have challenged him on Okinawa, but he just casually as about it and then let it go.
With the benefit of the transcript, here's the Murtha quote. Tim Russert asked him who in the Middle East would accept the troops which we would, under the Murtha Plan, have flee from Iraq.
REP. MURTHA: Kuwait’s one that will take us. Qatar, we already have bases in Qatar. So Bahrain. All those countries are willing to take the United States. Now, Saudi Arabia won’t because they wanted us out of there in the first place. So—and we don’t have to be right there. We can go to Okinawa. We, we don’t have—we can redeploy there almost instantly. So that’s not—that’s, that’s a fallacy. That, that’s just a statement to rial up people to support a failed policy wrapped in illusion.
MR. RUSSERT: But it’d be tough to have a timely response from Okinawa.
REP. MURTHA: Well, it—you know, they—when I say Okinawa, I, I’m saying troops in Okinawa. When I say a timely response, you know, our fighters can fly from Okinawa very quickly. And—and—when they don’t know we’re coming. There’s no question about it. And, and where those airplanes won’t—came from I can’t tell you, but, but I’ll tell you one thing, it doesn’t take very long for them to get in with cruise missiles or with, with fighter aircraft or, or attack aircraft, it doesn’t take any time at all. So we, we have done—this one particular operation, to say that that couldn’t have done, done—it was done from the outside, for heaven’s sakes.
Jack Murtha hasn't a clue, and they his words are confounding coming from a Dem with newfound aspirations for a leadership post which would require great Democrat gains this fall.
This raises an important question, and I think it is a quasi-valid one: Is Murtha a GOP plant? Jack Murtha has never been a leftist extremist; he's a Democrat Rep. in what James Carville once called the "Alabama of Pennsylvania." His constituency is relatively conservative, mostly blue collar – many retired – the folks whose father's voted for "President Roosevelt" so they'll do the same.
Now, it has happened to Cindy Sheehan. Some argue that it's happened to Tom Tancredo. It happened to Jim Jeffords, and it has definitely happened to Jack Murtha. Consider it: Murtha was an effective behind-the-scenes congressman with strong Pentagon ties. Few outside the close Congress-watchers had heard of him, but he had power. What he didn't have is the spotlight; he was given that, and it sucked him in. He's not letting go.
If he keeps his trap open with words falling forth like those we've seen for the past several months, the GOP majority in the House could well be safe. He goes beyond the pale, speaking only to the hardcore anti-Bushie crowd, while the constantly touted polls show no widespread contempt of that nature for the President.
If Jack Murtha were not doing and saying what he is, down to his messianic announcement that he wants to be Dem leader, Karl Rove would have to think seriously consider creating him. It's a brilliant tactic on Rove's part, perhaps even more masterful than tricking the Dems into Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi.
Of course this line of argument is facetious on my part. Karl Rove doesn't pick the Dems who get the microphone; they do it themselves, which makes this all the more spectacular.
Update [2006-6-19 12:10:43 by Mark Kilmer]: Hoover, the commenter who offered the observation about Murtha and Okinawa has sent me the link to this post at Power Line about the efficacy of a rapid response to events in Iraq from Murtha's proposed Okinawa staging area. There's even a map showing the near-equidistance between the U.S. and Baghdad and Japan.
Perhaps Congressman Murtha meant to propose withdrawing our troops to New Zealand.
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Is Jack Murtha a Rovian creation? 42 Comments (0 topical, 42 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
If the greatest service murtha gives this country is by motivating people to do the exact opposite of what he wants us to do.
No one is more effective at stating plainly the poltroonery of the left than murtha.
He needs to be seen and heard in all of his decreptitude and cowardice and ignorance.
Murtha talks she's starting to get press coverage.
Irey website doesn't indicate which party she belongs. She must be one of the proud.
Diana Irey is worth watching, and she is worth of our contributions. Here.
Is a Howard Dean/Rahm Emanuel plant. Everything he said in this week's go-round with Russert was straight from the mouth of Howard Dean when he espoused the new Democrat "plan" to "redeploy" the troops in Iraq several months ago. Murtha is, as I've said before, the new public face of Cindy Sheehan in the Democratic Party.
Kevin Drum covered this waaaaaaay back in December, 2005. Murtha is rolling this out now on the Sunday-Morning talk shows because it's taken that long for the Dems. to settle on it as their "plan." But Dean was describing the outlines of this policy, which he took pains to emphasize to his audience, was "not cut-and-run" but "redeployment" a long, long time ago.
You can find a more complete outline and discussion of the plan, here.
The concept, dubbed ''strategic redeployment," is outlined in a slim, nine-page report coauthored by a former Reagan administration assistant Defense secretary, Lawrence J. Korb, in the fall. It sets a goal of a phased troop withdrawal that would take nearly all US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2007 [and this is considered quick?] ...
Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman, has endorsed Korb's paper and begun mentioning it in meetings with local Democratic groups. In addition, the study's concepts have been touted by the senator assigned to bring Democrats together on Iraq - Jack Reed of Rhode Island - and the report has been circulated among all senators by Senator Dianne Feinstein, an influential moderate Democrat from California. [Well, at least they are trying to look like they're organized.] ...
Many leading Democrats say the Korb plan represents an answer to Republicans' oft-repeated charge that Democrats aren't offering a way forward on Iraq [because, if Democrats DO offer a way to get out of Iraq, the Republicans call them disloyal and unpatriotic and traitors. Go figure....]
Not enough babes in Congress, unless you count Cynthia McDaddy.
about this sputtering, lickspittle poltroon by now.
However, sitting here reading this string, I suddenly realized: Jack Murtha is acting exactly like a double agent released (with predjudice) by one of his masters with the threat that his original master is going to receive a copy of his dossier.
He is neither dead nor alive. Whatever his future might be will be intirely dependent upon the party he betrayed in the first instance.
Murtha's ONLY hope for political survival is if the Democrites win the House in November, and he has not yet too far offended whichever clique of the Bandar Log might assume the leadership.
I am originally from this mutt's district, and have friends, family and many contacts there. They are reporting hearing Iron City-soaked nonsupportive nasal mutterings about Murtha in the local VFWs, AMVets, American Legions, Polish Clubs, etc.
Murtha can be defeated there. Something I never believed could happen before. All we need to do is to have the Irey Campaign convince the Cambria, Bedford and Indiania county voters that Murtha has come out against personal ownership of weapons, and *POW* he's gone.
Seriously, I hope Irey is already deep into Murtha's lair with the truth about him.
GB
Between what you heard on this week's Russert and the actual views of the Progressives in Iowa is that Murtha/Dean are taking heat because they're probably not being "progressive" enough! And isn't that always the case with them, Howard Dean especially?
[For heaven's sake, Howard - CUT AND RUN! What are we doing there in the first place? How many more of our loved ones have to die? How many more Iraqis do we have to murder in their beds?]
How much clearer does it need to be to Republicans and Conservatives? I can't draw these lines any better. It's right there in black and white.
Also, I'll repro. the link to the original story in the Boston Globe:
Democrats May Unite On Plan To Pull Troops
February 20, 2006. It's June 19th, now, and evidently they have settled on this as the "plan" giving credence to the earlier warnings from Rahm that the Dems. would eventually "have a position" on Iraq. When I wrote my original title, I didn't include the Korb Constant, which is a dimensionless number that you either need to raise the aforementioned equation to or multiply the denominator by when you do the integral.
and getting more so.
Let murtha spew on.
After defeat, he will be like that Georgia lefty Senator, hanging around pretending like he only lost becuase of the VRWC,a nd not voter disgust.
Very well spoken. Beat Murtha like a drum.
Murtha was invited by Fox to be on with Irey and did not return their phone calls.
From the quality of this short interview I think Irey may have what it takes to beat Murtha.
It's great.
GB -- Do you and your friends and family who have been represented by Murtha over the years notice a deterioration in his faculties? Watching him on MTP yesterday, I thought him slipping away mentally, the result of age. Seriously. In which case I would want to be more charitable toward him personally.
much less manage our national security.
Mark Steyn skewers him in one his latest columns:
"In the early '70s, when Kerry was insisting we'd get out of Vietnam at very little cost, he at least could plead ignorance: He didn't know what would come after. In 2006, we all know what followed: boat people, Cambodia's killing fields, globalized dominoes falling from Grenada to Iran. When Murtha, Kerry and Co. effectively demand that America agree to retraumatize itself in the humiliation of an even bigger geopolitical bug-out, one assumes they're failing to consider where the dominoes would fall this time round -- in Afghanistan, in Jordan, in Turkey, and beyond. It would end the American moment: Why would Russia, China or even Belgium take American power seriously ever again?"
ever take American power seriously again?
of all.
Thanks.
With Zarqawi pushing up daisies, combined American and Iraqi forces rounding up 800+ Al Qaeda goons in a week, the new Iraqi government in place, we probably wouldn't need Dean and Murtha to pull our troops out by the end of next year. The way things are going, President Bush and Iraqi PM al-Maliki might decide on that with no help from Dean and Murtha.
At that time, Bush might follow Murtha's advice to re-deploy them to Okinawa--a good jumping off point for North Korea.
And here all these years I've been under the delusion that in war the exit strategy was to beat the other guy. Silly me.
One can't help but wonder what the Dems would have proposed as an exit strategy on D-Day. Or after Bastogne. I guess that's why I'm a Republican, I'm not nuanced enough to be a Democrat.
First, we hold the kickoff rally in Okinawa, to give the Congressman the benefit of the one locale he seems to understand.
Then, it's off for that short 5000 mile hop (as described by Blackfive) for a "We support the troops BUT" rally in Iraq. There will be a rest stop in China and a testimonial dinner featuring Peking duck, with video features on the reduction of CO2 emissions in the Third World.
For the finale, it's off to the moon and other celestial environs, where the Congressman will idenitfy promising locations for a more non-intrusive military response force.
Sounds promising, don't ya think?
"Now that you have your gasbag filled, why don't you blow away?" - the Honeymooners
We got a ton of work ($$$) dumped on us by two clients and I've found myself up to my you-know-what in alligators trying to get on track. I only have rare opportunity to drop in for a while between working and traveling. i'll try to do better in the future :-)
you seem to be assuming we can get overflight permission from China and Iran :-)
He's got a lock on Vice Presidential nomination in order to consolidate the Kos Kids for whomever the unfortunate presidential candidate turns out to be.
I also would not be surprised to see him challenge Steny Hoyer after the election, no matter which way it goes.
that the gods of politics could actually bless the Republican party with Murtha as the Democrat VP candidate?
But I left the district to join the Army and never returned except to visit, or to settle my wife and kids before yet another deployment.
Twice, as an Army Staff Officer, I met with him in his office (early 80s), each time he had to be kept on the rails by his staff chief.
Family, friends and folks I know well back in the district have commented to me on several occasions about just the condition you describe. Murtha spends a lot of time back home (2.5 hour drive) and maintains an excellent staff in Johnstown. He is constantly speaking to the public - usually on the occasion of the opening of some new and wonderous health research facility named after him or his wife and paid for my 'earmarked' DOD dollars.
"Dithering" is a word I hear often about his focus. Additionally, Murtha seems to have actually either turned a corner or flipped a switch and became 'radicalized' on issues he heretofore displayed indifferece.
Regardless, 'jan', in my book Murtha is beyond redemption, and his conduct is reprehensible and unforgivable. Regardless of whatever mental, physical or emotional condition he may suffer - none can explain or mitigate his conduct.
One thing about Murtha not usually spotted by those outside his district is the utter industrial and economic decay in the district during his tenure. Steel mills gone - thousands of jobs. Mines closed - thousands of jobs. Railroads imploded - hundreds of jobs - and so on and so on. It is almost as if a systemattic program of plunder was implemented and it affects everything from standard/quality of living to the fact that roads in the district are actually hazardous: Infrastructural decline to a breathtaking extent.
I could go on but there is no better way of answering your question about a possible decline in Murtha's faculties than this: Murtha more and more brings the appearance to public of a man whose conscience is far from clean; that he is being adversely affected by that fact - and for all the very best reasons. I think he is a man seeking redemtion - where there will be none. He has attached himself to the Dark Side of the Democratic Party because (I believe) he actually believes all of its self-righteous b.s.. and clings to that as a path to redemption. Also, pragmatically, he really is hopeful for a leadership positiion in the House if the Dems take it in November - and his own leadership has not disowned him.
Finally, as I said above: Nothing, but nothing, will cleanse that dolt's soul of the lies and betrayals of which he is so abundantly and clearly responsible. No mitigation. Murtha needs to go, and to go as ingloriuosly as possible.
Also, for Ms. Irey: Murtha is Not - repeat - NOT the sharpest knife in the drawer. But, he has a first-class senior staff at home and in WDC. They can clean him up quickly. Folks back home still don't know whether he uses 'Depends' - although suspicions abound.
GB
Why don't we fly Murtha across the Pacific to rally the troops in Okinawa (since he wants to send them reinforcements), and then, oops, there are technical problems with the return flight, which will be repaired on November 9. Oops, there are also technical problems with the microphones in Okinawa.
...in all seriousness, what are anyone's chances of defeating an incumbent with the largest airport in his district named after him?
Man must bring home some serious bacon for that honorific. Voters in the district will remember that at least as much as his defeatist rhetoric.
--furious
Kerry's editorial in the Philly Inquirer on Friday:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/14829393.htm
He's using Murtha's "over-the-horizon" language. Has that become common for leading Dems to use Murtha-speak, or is this more or less a first? In fact, the whole column sounds like it could have been written by Murtha.
We will not leave Iraq vulnerable. Under my plan, the United States will maintain an over-the-horizon military presence in the Middle East to fight the war on terror and protect regional security interests....
You know how Gators get when they see things dangling around...
He wants us to try to get the Arab League and the European Union to work out a solution for Iraq? Does he mean Sunni Arabs or Shiite Arabs? It has taken three years to get most of the Iraqis to agree on a government, and Kerry wants to bring in OTHER Arabs?
As for the European Union, it's not united. England and Poland and Italy are on our side (Spain was too, until Al Qaeda blew up some trains in Madrid), while the French and Germans were against us (although Angela Merkel is definitely an improvement). Do we really wait for the Europeans to come to an agreement, or wouldn't it be much easier and quicker to settle this ourselves with the Iraqi government?
Maybe Kerry still wants Paris peace talks around a round table. Wrong war, Mr. Senator--the French backed the wrong horse, and the Iraqis don't want to talk to the French anymore. Unless, of course, Kerry wants to invite Saddam to the negotiations!
The voters in PA-12, as I said, are generationally Democrat. ("Daddy was a Democrat and Granpappy voted for President Roosevelt.")
HOWEVER, most voters in that region are very angry with incumbants who are perceived as having been in office for "too long." Irey says she's hearing a lot of this.
holds elective office in the district and has won it a couple of times. She appears to be fairly well known, although nothing like JM's name recognition.
Based on her comments on FoxNews this morning, I don't expect Murtha to face her in a debate. She'd beat the old fool like a well tuned drum.
which works? i'm afraid the one you've provided doesn't work. it takes you to the "expose the left" website, but when you click on "video", nothing comes up.
anyone have another link?
Sorry the response was delayed.
Pleasure nonetheless.
is proof enough that Diana Irey enjoys divine favor.