John Murtha (just when you think he can't say any more stupid things)

US Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Committee and an Iraq war critic, was the guest at last Friday's Monitor breakfast.

"We have become occupiers. We cannot win this militarily. But I hesitated to say anything. I waited probably too long. The way we operate militarily is a problem.... We go into a place, we have to blow it up to protect American lives. I agree with that. That's the way we operate to protect Americans.

"Accountability is going to be the key. Corruption, talk about corruption ... there [are] billions of dollars that disappeared and we don't know where it is. We have all kinds of stories which haven't been followed up.... The biggest deficiency among all the other mistakes is no accountability in this administration ... I think checks and balances have gotten out of kilter."

"I think I can help because I am more conservative.... There is an idea that [the Democrats'] leadership is very liberal and I think I bring some balance to that leadership."

On whether the press has been an active enough watchdog during the war in Iraq:

"I blame some of you guys, too. You guys knew this wasn't going well. You didn't say a damn word, either. You just sat back and were afraid to speak out. I don't know whether it was access or what. But you sat back and did nothing either.

BUT in the past Murtha kept his mouth shut and sat around counting his kickback coinage.

Now he's out there dissing the troops in harm's way and making their jobs more difficult. It's a whole new ballgame this time around. If he had kept his mouth shut you may be right, but he is pissing off a lot of people. That's why he now has the audacity to throw the "conservative" word around. It's damage control. He knows his home turf is conservative dems, not Philly-style plantation dems..

During his legislative career, Murtha has been a House insider, loyal to the Democratic leadership and a favorite of then-House Speaker Tip O'Neill, D-Mass. In the probe of what became known as the Abscam bribery scandal, Murtha was the only congressman involved in the complex case to emerge without facing criminal charges. He declared he was innocent, saying he had "met with two men who I believed had a substantial line of credit....snip

from USAToady (misspelling intentional)

Murtha was neck deep in it but his buddy Tip O'Neil covered for him.

If you want to flame me, go ahead. Everything I said was perfectly true. Theres even a alot more to it.

Making some campaign suggestions is not the same thing as influence. Whoever I was speaking to had the good sense to be a good listener. I told them up front that I was not a big shot, and I wasn't some rich donor either, just a grassroots campaign worker that had some suggestions. Somebody decided to listen.

I'll give you just one more example: I had noticed (then Gov.) Bush had been campaigning in mostly the larger cities (just like Gore.) I told them our votes are not in the major cities, by and large, but out in the country. So I gave them an example of Oklahoma back in the 1970's where the Republicans would have the lead in the Governors race until around midnight, then the farmers votes would start rolling in from the counties. By morning, the Democrat would have the votes to win. The farmers and other rural folk must have gotten a big kick out of that.

In a move that was picked up by the press (small story but its out there if you want to pick it up) he started campaigning mid or late summer in smaller towns. Some counties have a bunch of votes, but its just scattered out, over dozens of towns, like, say, Calhoun county in Alabama, which has a lot of votes, but no single huge city.

What you do, is you go to the county seat and make a speech. You don't have to visit every little town in the county. If you have been to the 'county seat' folks can't say you didn't come and ask for their vote. And thats another thing I told them. Dole never really closed out the deal in his speeches. I told them as example: a good Baptist minister has his three points, and then has his alter call, and overhearing people talking (while supporting Dole campaign '96) "They never came down here and asked for our vote, so why should I bother?" I told them Bush needed to add in an 'altar call' to his speeches where he asked for their vote.

(thats actually more than one thing, like I said before, I could write a book (in a manner of speaking) on that phone call. Theres still more, but even though I enjoy talking about it, theres no use making such a big deal. I know what I did and I saw the results, thats all that matters. I probably shouldn't have brought it up.

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