Regarding the Angry White (liberal) Male...

From Newsmax:

Congressional Democrats could use the threat of impeachment as a lever against President Bush in the battle over the handling of the Iraq war, Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., said Sunday.

"What I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a president. And one of them’s impeachment,” said Murtha, according to the Web site Politco.com. Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, made his remarks on "Face the Nation.”

What a senile, megalomaniacal, opportunistic piece of garbage. PA-12, what were you thinking?

Go ahead, Jack--you want to put in the final nail of the dems' chances of getting in in '08, drag the President (and yourselves, for that matter) through the impeachment process.

With every question you ask Bush, know that you will be asking yourselves the same question.

You were privy to every piece of intelligence that Bush had.

You decided to approve this action.

And you run away from the consequences, and you run away from the responsibility of seeing it through.

And you want to actually lead this nation?

Bruce Berkowitz has an excellent article today (subscription req) in WSJ regarding Jihad Jack Murtha:

Certified Madness

By Bruce Berkowitz

Word Count: 757

One of the more interesting sections of the war funding bill Congress will soon send President Bush is its provision for "readiness." The bill prohibits spending funds "to deploy any unit of the Armed Forces to Iraq unless the chief of the military department concerned has certified in writing . . . that the unit is fully mission capable."

John Murtha (D., Pa.), chairman of the House subcommittee on defense appropriations, is mainly responsible for the clause. Mr. Murtha is a Marine Vietnam combat veteran and he's concerned that U.S. forces don't have all the resources they need to complete their missions.

Berkowitz goes on to tell the tale of U.S. Navy Ensign George Gay, whose plane, along with every other underpowered, under-gunned plane in his squadron, went down while engaging Japanese zeroes during the Battle of Midway in WWII. Berkowitz makes the point that although untrained and ill-equipped, Gay and the rest of his squadron kept the Japanese Zeroes busy while American Bombers destroyed three of four Japanese carriers, the deciding point in that battle that turned the war in the Pacific in favor of the Allied forces. Ensign Gay, the only one of his squadron of 30 who survived the battle, stated:

"We had old planes and we were new," the pilot recalled. "We had a dual job of not only training a squadron of boot Ensigns," he said, "we also had to fight the war at the same time."

In fact, training and fighting became one and the same. Ensign Gay's squadron leader told him and the others to follow him to the target, and then they figured out a way to get through the flack when they got there.

Ensign Gay and the other pilots knew they were ill-equipped and under-trained. But they flew the mission anyway because they also knew that something larger was at stake -- like losing the war if they waited until someone was willing to "certify in writing" that they met official readiness standards.

Berkowitz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute, summarizes:

Mr. Murtha has good intentions, but he's got it exactly wrong. If U.S. forces lack the equipment or training they need, it's his job, as the chairman of the one subcommittee specifically responsible for originating defense appropriations, to make sure they get it.

While I of course agree with Mr. Berkowitz' assertions, Mr. Berkowitz would do well to not be so hasty in assigning Murtha with "good intentions."

As has been evident throughout his far-too-long lasting career in the House of Representatives, Jack Murtha has never been about anything that didn't benefit his own prestige or his pocketbook.

To assign him "good intentions" in anything but service to himself is a gross error in character judgment.

The Anatomy of a Leak

The guys at RedState interviewed Brian Rooney from the Thomas More Center. According to the article, Mr. Rooney is a former JAG officer. Here's one of the appalling things that Mr. Rooney said:

RS: There seems to be a coordinated program of damaging leaks directed against the Marines in this case. Especially the leak that John Murtha hinted came from the Commandant of the USMC. Can you give us other examples of leaks prejudicial to the Marines in this case. Any idea on why these leaks are happening or who is behind them?

BR: I was told from a very reliable source that the leaks of the NCIS investigation and the Bargewell report came from a anti-war politician on one of the armed services committee. All of the leaks have been given to Josh White of the Washington Post; his source is on one of the armed services committees. These leaks seem to come out every time press against these Marines starts getting favorable. Murtha for instance said that the Marines murdered in cold blood and officers covered it up...this was all done before Bargewell was complete...One of the main findings of Bargewell was there was "no cover-up."

This is proof positive that Murtha actively tried to railroad these Marines before the investigation was finished. Why else would he make these allegations? It's disgusting enough that he threw out the Constitution's due process protections and these soldiers' right to a fair trial. It's more disgusting that he attempted to railroad our patriotic, heroic soldiers on a pack of lies. Let's examine this is a bit.

He had to be attempting to railroad these soldiers because he didn't have the truth. He wasn't acting on unassailable information from the investigation. There's only one logical explanation: he's as corrupt as the leaker, who clearly had a political agenda in this matter. What causes a man to do that? Talk about corrupt.

It's noteworthy that Murtha's timing was called into question, too:

These leaks seem to come out every time press against these Marines starts getting favorable.

That's the quintessential definition of a hatchet job, something that Rep. Murtha has actively participated in. Again, Rep. Murtha has done this without verifiable information. Rep. Murtha has done this before the investigation has issued its findings.

We also know that Rep. Murtha, in his capacity of chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, holds the Pentagon's funding in his hands. If he tells someone in the Pentagon to jump, they're expected to ask how high. This is the essence of corruption. This is what a power-drunk megalomaniac does.

Let's also ask what other things Rep. Murtha has done to 'support' the troops. How can a man railroad innocent soldiers into murder convictions and still say that he supports the troops? Why should we believe anything he says? Who was his Pentagon source for this misinformation? Let's remember that Murtha said he got his information from "real guys who know what they're talking about." It appears as though those sources didn't know what they were talking about or they were intentionally lying about what they knew.

Another thing we know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that these leakers, like Rep. Murtha, don't worry about these soldiers' constitutional protections. If they did, they'd let the truth be discovered, at which point they'd follow the truth wherever it took them. Clearly, that isn't what they did here.

Here's the article that's made its way around the internet that talks about the exculpatory evidence that NCIS withheld:

Although the prosecutors said they needed more time to prepare their cases, there is much more to the story than that NewsMax.com has learned, and it paints a shocking picture of a prosecution that should never have been pursued.
In a nutshell, the case exploded when an intelligence officer dropped a bombshell on prosecutors during a pre-hearing interview when he revealed the existence of exculpatory evidence that appears to have been obtained by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and withheld from the prosecutors.
This officer, described by senior Marine Corps superiors as one of the best and most dedicated intelligence officers in the entire Marine Corps, was in possession of evidence which provided a minute-by-minute narrative of the entire day's action — material which he had amassed while monitoring the day's action in his capacity as the battalion's intelligence officer. That material, he says, was also in the hands of the NCIS.

This begs a series of questions, like:

• When did NCIS first obtain this information?
• Why did NCIS knowingly withhold this information?
• Did John Murtha know about this information?
• If he did, why didn't he backtrack on his initial allegations?
• If Murtha knew about NCIS withholding this information, why didn't he push to get the Haditha Marines cleared of the charges?

Most importantly, will Rep. Murtha apologize to the Haditha Marines when they're cleared of these charges? That's what an honorable man would do. At this point, I haven't seen proof that Rep. Murtha is an honorable man.

Murtha's disregard for the Constitution is what motivated us to start MMG. His distaste for the truth is what motivates us to keep MMG going. Playing a part in getting him 'fired' in November, 2008 is all the reward we'd need.

Technorati: John Murtha, Corruption, Abuse OF Power, Haditha Marines, Due Process, Constitution, Leaks, Pentagon, NCIS

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

On returning "favors.."

Wanting to otherwise de-fund our current war effort, Jack Murtha curiously is going ga-ga over spending 9 billion dollars per year to build three submarines per year (note that only two submarines were requested):

Each Virginia-class sub is about the length of a football field and costs nearly $3 billion to build.

They are able to fire cruise missiles at land targets, conduct surveillance off foreign shores, and drop off commando teams to do stealth jobs behind enemy lines.

Half the work on the subs is done in Groton at the Electric Boat plant; the other half at Northrop Grumman in Newport News.

Electric Boat now has about 10,000 workers on its payroll, most of them in Groton, some at its facility at Quonset Point, R.I.

Note how MSNBC goes out of its way to call Murtha a "hawkish" democrat.

But like we've said time and time again on this blog, Jack Murtha's hawkishness is directly related and is limited by how many greenbacks with which he can line his slimy pockets. Case in point:

-General Dynamics, a parent company of Electric Boat, donated $10,000 to Murtha's campaign last year:

Powerbroker on military spending
Americans know Murtha as the man who has been calling loudly for U.S. forces’ exit from Iraq. But long before any U.S. soldier set foot in Iraq, Murtha wielded power as the Democrats’ premier military appropriator – the man who decides how many billions of dollars should be spent on destroyers, cruisers, subs and bombers.

Murtha, who holds a safe seat, has garnered campaign contributions from defense contractors, including $10,000 in the 2006 campaign from General Dynamics, the parent company of Electric Boat. Murtha shared his largesse with Democratic House candidates including Courtney to whose campaign he donated $4,000.

Yet this is the same buffoon who regularly complains that the war on terror is costing too much money.

PA-12, you get who you vote for.

BTW, I hope you washed your hands after casting that vote.
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