There’s no excerpting this one. Just go read it. And when you are done reading it and are done throwing up, talk yourself down for a moment. This is how Congress works. It used to be worse. John Murtha represents two things. He represents everything that is wrong with Congress, and he represents the model of effectiveness for a member of Congress. I can’t even begin to line up all the reforms that would be needed to change this system. The New York Times article is a great start. But, as disgusting as Murtha’s actions are when you look at them in isolation, he is merely playing the game according to the rules of the game. He’s good. He’s done absolute wonders for his district. They’d have to be masochists to throw him out.
At the root of this is the very thing that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about: the military-industrial complex. It trumps everything. It trumps ethics and waste and corruption and transparency. It trumps aid for the poor, education and health care. Nothing matters besides the military-industrial complex. And we most certainly should consider the energy industry as an integral part of the complex.
This is a problem so big that only a charismatic leader in a nation in crisis could hope to clean it up on a dime. We little guys can only hope to chip away here and there. Transparency and accountability are the best short-term protections against this kind of bad government.
You might think John Murtha is a hero. He’s not. He’s just very good at what he does.
John Murtha is a hero. He stood up and told the truth in the face of withering criticism and scandal, and the nation is at least marginally better for it. That doesn’t make him perfect. He is one of the least progressive Democrats in Congress, that he plays the money game so well shouldn’t come as a surprise.
scandal should have been slander. I’m going to bed.
Kind of sucks when you have to pick between Hoyer and Murtha as potential Majority Leaders.
That being said, I’d still take Murtha over Hoyer. He’s squarely on our side when it comes to the biggest issue of the day – Iraq. And given his age, I don’t think he’d be Majority Leader for more than 2 terms.
This has all the fingerprints of a Hoyer hit piece. But I don’t see it as unfair at all. It appears to be quite informative, actually.
And, as with Lieberman, Murtha is not nearly so annoying when he is in the majority and buying off Republicans to vote with us.
Didn’t say the piece was unfair at all. It certainly isn’t a flattering portrait.
But when has Lieberman ever delivered any GOP votes for us? He’s always been a whore for the right wing.
If he were head of Homeland Security he could deliver a vote here and there. And he would.
Just as Murtha has sold us out repeatedly, he would get the GOP to sell themselves out if he were Chairman.
That’s how it works. You want pork? You play ball.
It’s the ugly side of having narrow control.
I s’pose you have a point.
Nevertheless, I feel that Joe is a far worse offender with regards to how politics is played than Murtha is.
This reminds me that Eisenhower originally wanted to talk about the military-industial-congressional-complex, but others got him to take that third one out of his speech. That might just speak volumes about what we need to know.
as some folks did. I mean, he has stuck his neck out to ‘support the troops,’ and to criticize the ineptitude of Bush policy where it counts.
But he reminds me of the Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard, who during Katrina, famously cried about a subordinate’s mama dying from drowning–yet couldn’t allow black victims to walk into Gretna and safety, because he declared the city and its environs “Jeffersonia,” and promised gunfire if they tried to cross into the parish.
Some people are so busy valorizing–because there are so few true heroes around–that they refuse to see who these people truly are, and that a bid to talk truth to power may be their opportunity to get heat off them.
What it comes down to is that it has become one sick, sick game that is sooo stacked, “we” could play forever and never get close to “winning” even one hand. Does that pretty much sum it up?
What a moron I must sound like: here I am approaching 62 years of age and still looking for something to believe in.