Posted on 11/27/2006 7:50:52 AM PST by Chi-townChief
John Murtha (D-Pa.) is the Gene McCarthy of the Iraq war. A majority of Americans may not know or remember "Clean Gene." He was the educator, poet and Minnesota senator who blew the whistle on President Lyndon Johnson's failed war in Vietnam. To those of us coming of age in the mid-1960s, he was the one ray of hope in a Congress that sheepishly followed Johnson's Democratic war party down the road to disaster in Vietnam.
When he received more delegates than the president in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, Johnson began to acknowledge his failure in Vietnam and dropped out of the 1968 presidential election. Unfortunately, McCarthy was too anti-establishment for the Democratic Party, so they dumped him for Bobby Kennedy. When Kennedy was assassinated, they turned not to McCarthy but to war party staple Hubert Humphrey. The result was the election of Republican Richard Nixon, who prolonged the war for seven agonizing years, resulting in almost as many American casualties as had occurred up to his election.
We anti-war activists, now grizzled senior citizens, have had to come out of retirement in a new century to oppose another disastrous, unnecessary war -- this time in Iraq. And it is fitting that our Pied Piper is the grizzled septuagenarian Vietnam combat Marine veteran John Murtha. He came out of a pro-war, pro-military stance to speak the truth that the war was unwinnable and our presence in Iraq was doing more harm than good. His vision helped the Democrats regain the House and Senate after 12 years of Republican rule -- the last five of which have been a descent into military madness.
And how did the Democratic Party reward Murtha? They dumped him as Speaker Nancy Pelosi's choice of majority leader in the House in favor of Steny Hoyer (D-Md). Hoyer, predictably, has been AWOL from the effort to withdraw our soldiers from the catastrophe in Iraq.
If history repeats itself, we have about seven more years of slaughter in Iraq before we find a face-saving way to withdraw from certain defeat. And John Murtha, like Gene McCarthy 40 years earlier, will become a mere footnote in the folly of a deadly, unnecessary war.
Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn
Walt's sort of clueless.
Point 1. LBJ was a serious manic-depressive who had a hard time psychologically with the presidency because unlike the Senate which he could control at his will, he could not control world events. Emotionally, they guy was always a mess. When McCarthy took New Hampshire, LBJ went into a deep depression and decided to give up. (He had a similar episode in the run-up to the 64 election and almost quit --- Lady Bird was able to talk him off the ledge that time.) If LBJ had run again, he likely would have won again, but it would have been close against a "moderate" Republican like Nixon.
Point 2. Bobby Kennedy being the ultimate opportunist saw a vacuum and jumped into the campaign when McCarthy took New Hampshire and suddenly painted himself as "just enough" anti-war to get the young mush heads on his side while not scaring off the average voter (he hadn't been anti-war until that point). He used his national fund rasing, media and myth making organizations to paint him as a savior when in reality, he was nothing but a power grabbing punk.
Point 3. If McCarthy had won the nomination in 68, he would have been beat worse than McGovern was in 72 -- far worse. The nation was not anti-war during either of those elections --- it was only the media elites saying they were that creates the false history these people live on.
When? When was he pro-war?
Local lawmakers convinced war inevitable
By Chris Buckley VALLEY INDEPENDENT
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
"I'm a little more nervous this time because of the threat of chemical and biological weapons and because there will possibly be fighting in the streets," Murtha said.
"To put it bluntly, it was handled badly," Murtha said of the current situation. "We should have had the allies lined up first before we pursued this. But our troops are there; it's hard to stop the momentum."
What day did the operations in Iraq start?
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
The FIRST DAY OF THE WAR, he was saying it was handled badly.
Good Post!
Correct! They are using the exact same tactics in THIS war. I certainly hope the outcome is different. I do not want to be around when 3 1/2 million Iraqis are slaughtered if we pull out.
Thanks. What an appropriate tagline you have. ;*(
I'd pay to see that meeting.
FMCDH(BITS)
IMHO, that would be the least of our worries. The NVA was content murdering their own. The people we're up against now will kill at least that many in Iraq and Afghanistan and then they will start doing the same here.
I loved a girl from Glen Ellyn,...but that's another story.
For some reason, every time I see or hear Murth's name I get this mental image of him grunting a load. That must be some flush!
Mega dittos!
I see nothing wrong with comparing one traitor with another. If that's what flatters traitors to be compared to another enabler of America's enemies, so be it.
Good post Justa, you nailed Walt and thanks for the ping. Zlotow and other nut cases like him don't want to be confused with the facts, it doesn't fit their agenda.
Murtha has never been a hawk and never will be. However, he is anxious to equip the military he wants to redeploy to Okinawa because of the huge amounts of pork he can skim off the appropriation bills. It's criminal he's gotten away with it all these years.
Call me skeptical in regard to equipping the military. He wants to spend billions of dollars making military items, IN HIS DISTRICT and those of his friends, but I am unconvinced he actually wants to do it FOR the military.
You are correct, it is criminal, and he is one!
That really hits the nail on the head. A "hawk" is strong on national defense--not strong on campaign kickbacks from businesses who receive appropriations. And, in many cases, appropriations that take away from training and equipment for our troops. Unfortunately, Murtha has many likeminded friends in the DOD who want money flowing to next-generation weapon systems and not to beans and bullets in Iraq. These people must be opposed at every turn.
Exactly.....on both counts!!!
BAM!
;*)
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