Murtha Flambé
I suspect John Murtha may have finally done a major amount of damage to himself today. I did not watch his appearance on Meet The Press today, but have read the transcript. Now the left wing might want to cherry pick a single quote out and get all excited about it, but the whole thing reads, well, just a bit different than the left would like it to.
MR. RUSSERT: The president says, “stay the course,” that within the next six months, Iraq will be secure under the direction of the new prime minister, and to do anything less now would be irresponsible.
REP. MURTHA: Well, “stay the course” is “stay and pay.” This is the thing that has worried me right along. We’re spending $8 billion dollars a month, $300 million dollars a day. And to give you some perspective of what that means, Gates said, “I’m going to quit the corporation, or I’m going to—less time with the corporation.” Well, you weigh $30 billion dollars. That’s four months of the cost of this war. This port security, if you want to spend more money, it’d would take 47 years the way we’re spending it. Education, the No Child Left Behind, a couple months of the war would pay for that. Whose going to, whose going to pay for this down the road? Our children and grandchildren are paying for this war. And then you have the, the, the emotional strain, the, the, the people who are being hurt.
On the floor the other day, you may have heard this, one fellow says, “We’re fighting this war.” We’re not fighting this war. One percent of the American people, these young men and women are fighting this war, with heavy packs, with 70 pounds of equipment, with helmets on in 130 degrees. That’s who’s fighting this war. And they say “stay the course.” There’s no plan. You open up this plan for victory, there’s no plan there. It’s just “stay the course.” That doesn’t solve any problem.
It’s worse today than it was six months ago when I spoke out initially. When I spoke out, the garbage wasn’t being collected, oil production below pre-war level—all those things indicated to me we weren’t winning this, and it’s the same today, if not worse. Anbar Province. There’s not one project been done in Anbar Province. Two million people live there. They have no water at all, no oil production, they have no electricity at all in that province where is the heartland of the defense. The first six months we went in there, no—there—not a shot was fired, so it shows you how it’s changed.
It’s getting worse. That’s why I feel so strongly. All of us know how important it is internationally to win this war. We know how important. We import 20 million barrels of oil a day—we use 20 million barrels of oil. We know how important, international community. But we’re doing it all ourself, and there’s no plan that makes sense. We need to have more international cooperation. We need to redeploy our troops, the periphery. What happened with Zarqawi could have been done from the out—it was done from the outside. Our planes went in from the outside. So there’s no reason in the world that they can’t redeploy the troops. They’ve become the targets, they’re caught in the civil war, and I feel very strongly about it.
MR. RUSSERT: You sure do, Congressman, but so does the White House. Karl Rove, the principal political adviser to the president, went to New Hampshire on Monday, and he talked about Democrats who voted for the war and who have now changed their opinion. Here’s what he had to say, and I’ll give you a chance to respond.
(Videotape, June 12, 2006):
MR. ROVE: Like too many Democrats, it strikes me they are ready to give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough and when it gets difficult, they fall back on that party’s old pattern of cutting and running. They may be with you at the first shots, but they are not going to be there for the last tough battles. They are wrong, and profoundly wrong, in their approach.
(End of videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: Cutting and running.
REP. MURTHA: He’s, he’s in New Hampshire. He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air conditioned office with his big, fat backside, saying, “Stay the course.” That’s not a plan. I mean, this guy—I don’t know what his military experience is, but that’s a political statement. This is a policy difference between me and the White House. I disagree completely with what he’s saying.
Now, let’s, let’s—give me, give you an example. When we went to Beirut, I, I said to President Reagan, “Get out.” Now, the other day we were doing a debate, and they said, “Well, Beirut was a different situation. We cut and run.” We didn’t cut and run. President Reagan made the decision to change direction because he knew he couldn’t win it. Even in Somalia, President Clinton made the decision, “We have to, we have to change direction. Even with tax cuts. When we had a tax cut under Reagan, we then had a tax increase because he had to change direction. We need to change direction. We can’t win a war like this.
This guy’s sitting back there criticizing—political criticism, getting paid by the public taxpayer, and he’s saying to us, “We’re, we’re winning this war, and they’re running.” We got to change direction, that’s what we have to do. You can’t, you can’t sit there in the air conditioned office and tell these troops they’re carrying 70 pounds on their back inside these armored vessels and hit with IEDs every day, seeing their friends blown up, their buddies blown up, and he says “stay the course.” Yeah, it’s easy to say that from Washington, D.C.
Murtha is quite incoherent if you read the whole transcript (here). He is also quite wrong. That is not my opinion, that is the opinion of my son who, unlike John Murtha, is not sitting on his big, fat ass in a studio pontificating about what my son is experiencing.
Keep talking, Murtha. Irey is gaining on you every time you open your mouth.
UPDATE: Others who are really impressed with Murtha. Protein Wisdom, Sundries Shack, Blackfive, Just One Minute. Worst thing is, I missed the Okinawa reference when trying to speed read through the transcript. Doh. Murtha is worse than clueless. He's actually able to suck intelligence out of a room.
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Blue Star Chronicles — June 20, 2006 @ 10:18 pm
By Shawn, June 18, 2006 @ 6:19 pm
How can he say we didn’t cut and run? And perhaps worse, he’s saying the war is not winnable. Goodness, if every time military action got messy we decided we couldn’t win and cut and run we’d be the military laughingstock of the globe instead of France. By Murtha’s standard WW2 was unwinnable and we should have cut and run at Monte Cassino in Europe and at Iwo Jima in the Pacific (if not sooner in both cases). This man is a jackass.
By D. B. Light, June 18, 2006 @ 7:41 pm
I am a veteran, although unlike Jack Murtha I seldom make a point of it. I also grew up in Murtha’s district and actually voted for the guy when I was much younger. I am proud of the first fact, not so proud of the second. I am also immensely proud of the fact that my nephew is currently stationed in Baghdad.
People tend to forget that Murtha was involved in Abscam although not indicted, and that his brother has long been raking in government funds that Jack steers his way. Murtha is old, corrupt, and increasingly out of touch with reality.
Murtha’s attack on Karl Rove is despicable and completely out of bounds. He suggests that only combat veterans have a right to speak out on the war. We have heard far too much of that kind of rhetoric from the right. It was wrong then and it is wrong now that Democrats are saying it. Having worn the uniform or faced fire is not a requirement for free speech, nor is it a legitimate standard by which to measure the value of what is said.
Jack Murtha is indeed a jackass. It is time for him to retire.
Let me give a brief plug here to Diana Irey, a bright young woman who is challenging Murtha. My sources in Western Pennsylvania tell me that she is doing surprisingly well against the old porker. I wish her the best.
You can read more about her at http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2006/06/pennsylvania-politics-irey-rising.html
By Gaius, June 18, 2006 @ 8:21 pm
You know, my son is over in Iraq right now. He tells me that Murtha is pretty much the most despised person in the world to the troops. So he might be making friends on the left and he might be the darling of the Code Pink people, but the troops do not like him.
So who is he really playing to?
By Blackhawk, June 18, 2006 @ 10:26 pm
So, let’s all raise money for the ‘Save Murtha by getting him a Hillary mask’ fund:)
Wow. I think I actually got dumber than I already am by reading Murtha’s … um … how to say poliltely … ‘words’ … ‘use of the English language’ … ‘delusional rant’? Was he drunk, senile, off his meds, in need of meds, abducted by aliens, or combo of above?
Man, talk about pimpin’ out foreign policy for short-term domestic gains. Or just being flat out locco.
By Roger Kramer, June 19, 2006 @ 6:25 am
It is quite telling that the large majority of cowardly cut-and-run proponents are firmly entrenched in the democratic party. It is a pity that a deranged old fool like Murtha is put in such a position as to unduly influence unsuspecting folks.
By Diva, June 19, 2006 @ 9:18 am
Murtha is either insane, being used as a tool of the pro-defeat left or is suffering from age related dementia. His behavior on MTP can not be explained in any other form. Democrats like him, Pelosi, Kerry and company have made it impossible for me to ever consider casting my vote for a pro-defeat democrat. They are pro-defeatists partisan hacks who hate Bush and Republicans more than they hate our country’s true enemies : OBL and Islamofascsim.
My husband is finishing up a three year deployment with CENTCOM as part of OIF and GWOT and he has nothing but disgust for politicians like Murtha who put partisan politics ahead of national welfare and the safety of our soldiers out in the field. I might also add that other members of CENTCOM my husband works with feel the same way about Murtha. They view him as a traitor and as a member of the enemy’s camp.
By Gaius, June 19, 2006 @ 9:23 am
Yeah, I can’t use the words I heard the other day. I’d lose my G rating!
By waterguy, August 2, 2006 @ 10:59 pm
Jack Murtha “The reason soldiers invented ‘fragging.’”