Wednesday, August 30, 2006

American Spectator Via Diana Irey For Congress: Murtha News

The American Spectator's September Issue just released features a story of which excerpts are on Diana Irey's website and contains alot of the well known facts about Murtha that followers of his every move like this site and a few others are aware of, hence the creation of these sites.

However, because of the MSM's love affair with everything and anything on the left, these what should be shocking pieces of information going back for many years have yet to break through the wall of protection erected by them surrounding Mr Murtha, thus keeping much of it from the average voters in Pennsylvania and those across the rest of the country that do not spend alot of time on the internet.

With only 2 months until the election, time is running out to reach these folks and hopefully the work of the people here and other anti-Murtha sites such as BootMurtha, GrassrootsPA and a few other blogs and forums the word will get out and Murtha will indeed be redeployed by Diana Irey in the fall.

In Case You Missed It: The American Spectator: The Full Murtha: "Washington is a forgiving town, at least to Democrats. Generally, scandal-tainted Republicans are given little quarter. John McCain is the most outstanding exception, and campaign finance reform is his ongoing penance. In the absence of such surrender to the Democratic agenda or a retreat from Washington altogether, the disgraced politician does the smart thing: lies low. Congressman John P. 'Jack' Murtha (D-PA) did precisely that for almost 25 years after his entanglement in 'Abscam,' an FBI investigation in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Then last November, Murtha re-emerged as the Democrats' main spokesman on the war in Iraq, loudly advocating the withdrawal of American forces. No flash in the pan, Murtha appears intent on remaining a media darling. In June, hoping that Democrats take over the House, he mounted a brief campaign for U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer's position as the number-two Democrat in the chamber.

Despite months of Murtha's noise, the media have offered little more than an abridged account of his 16-term tenure in the House of Representatives. When he made his splash last year, newspaper reports suggested that Murtha was a well-known hawk, a conservative even, who reluctantly, heroically, turned against the war. Yet to most political junkies, he was unknown. A flattering profile in the Washington Post last fdevoted all of one sentence to Murtha's "ethical scrape" in Abscam. Some outlets have reported the basic facts of Murtha's run-in with the law, but have pretty much ignored the rest of his career.

So who is Jack Murtha? One of the greatest behind-the-scenes operators in the House, he is an old-school congressman whose recent outspokenness is out of character-and perhaps a sign of desperation.

Before Abscam, Jack Murtha was a rising politician. A native of southwest Pennsylvania, Murtha twice enlisted in the Marine Corps and served one tour in Vietnam, where he was highly decorated. From the Pennsylvania statehouse, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election in 1974. He was quickly noticed by House leadership and apparently headed for its ranks, earning a slot on the Appropriations Committee and a role as a floor whip.

But his power-broker style made him a ripe target for the Abscam investigation. A sting operation hatched by the FBI in the late 1970s, Abscam had undercover agents offering bribes to senators, congressmen, and local politicians in return for official services on behalf of fictional Arab sheiks. After Abscam became public in 1980, six congressmen and one senator were convicted of bribery and conspiracy. Murtha wasn't among them, but he was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. Although Murtha did not accept a bribe, he failed to turn the undercover agents away.

The media's avoidance of Abscam isn't for lack of colorful details. According to reports, an FBI videotape of the meeting shows Murtha, quite confident in his large influence with Congress and the Carter White House, interested in dealing with the undercover agents. A 13-second clip of the meeting was discovered by conservative media earlier this year and disseminated on the Internet." read more

Technorati: Murtha, Irey, Congress, Corruption, Abscam