This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: John Murtha

  • So who’s surprised?

    According to Politico’s Daniel W. Reilly and Jim Vandehei, the Democrats have had a hard time trying to keep their campaign promises;

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is discovering the cold truth about governing with a slim majority: It’s much easier to promise behavioral change for Congress than to deliver it.

    Pelosi vowed that five-day workweeks would be a hallmark of a harder-working Democratic majority. So far, the House has logged only one. Lawmakers plan to clock three days this week.

    The speaker has denied Republicans a vote on their proposals during congressional debates — a tactic she previously declared oppressive and promised to end. Pelosi has opened the floor to a Republican alternative just once.

    Pelosi set a high standard for herself when she pledged to make this “the most ethical Congress in history” — a boast that was the political equivalent of leading with her chin. And some critics have been happy to hit it.

    So who’s surprised? This is the same party who controlled Congress for 50 years and are still complaining about the same policy changes they’ve been complaining about for 50 years. Democrats aren’t in the business of conducting business, they’re in the business of keeping their jobs.

    They complain that Republicans stand in their way of accomplishing their agenda, but since they hold the majority they shouldn’t be having these problems, should they? Even back in ’94 when they tried and failed at creating a national health care system, they blamed Republicans for their own party members who wouldn’t vote for the measure.

    The Democrats need crises to retain power – they need the hand-wringing mutton heads to be scared into voting. Look at their big “Bush is going to start the draft again” push in the 2004 election when they realized that Americans weren’t being scared over the war.

    Even Harry reid is having problems with his Senate majority. AP reports that he’ll have to delay debate on the Democrats’ plan to revisit the 2002 authorization for war;

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., said Monday he wanted to delay votes on a measure that would repeal the 2002 war authorization and narrow the mission in Iraq.

    Senior Democrats who drafted the proposal, including Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Carl Levin of Michigan, had sought swift action on it as early as this week, when the Senate takes up a measure to enact the recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission.

    Reid, who will huddle with Democrats Tuesday to discuss whether to postpone the Iraq debate, cited pressure from victims’ families for quick action on the Sept. 11 bill as the reason for doing so.

    What victims? The victims of what? The Democrats are finally figuring out that their most vocal supporters are a tiny majority in this country – they realize that their mandate is no mandate at all.

    Since they didn’t have a plan before the election and they pulled the Murtha slow-bleed plan out of their collective ass after the election, Americans aren’t as pleased with Democrats as Democrats thought they’d be.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., meanwhile, said she doesn’t support tying war funding to strict training and readiness targets for U.S. troops.

    The comments distanced her from Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who has said he wants to use Congress’ spending power to force a change in policy in Iraq, by setting strict conditions on war funding.

    Even Murtha is becoming a lightening rod, apparently. So I guess being in the majority isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when people expect you to actually work and make policy.

  • Lisping sissy advises Democrats: “make it about Bush”

    EJ Dionne, columnist for the Washington Post, gives advice to the anti-war crowd in Congress;

    The challenge to critics of the war is to make the debate about Bush, not about themselves, and to make clear that the president has rebuffed all efforts to pursue a bipartisan path out of Iraq, beginning with his rejection of the core recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, headed by James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton.

    UM, EJ, where have you been the last six years? If you hadn’t noticed, everything has always been about the President. And it’s always been clear that the “core recommendations” of the ISG were pie-in-the-sky, fruity recommendations anyway.

    I know little EJ wants us to negotiate with Iran (which underlies his idiot statement about the ISG recommendations) but how are we supposed to sit down with a government whose lead politician says things like this and this. Hardly seems like a rational person that we can trust to keep his word, does it?

    And, EJ, my boy, tell me what good a “bi-partisan solution” to the war in Iraq would do our troops? There’s a way to win that war, and there’s a way to lose that war, but there is no way to compromise between winning and losing that’ll make everyone happy.

    We’ve been compromising up to this point (despite the rantings of the Left) and that’s why we’ve been there so long, taken so many casualties, and spent so much money on this war – because we’ve been trying to asuage the guilt of the Left for making them vote for the war in the first place. We need another Sherman, Patton or Grant, that’s what we need, not bi-partisan compromises.

    Of course Dionne endorses the Murtha proposal;

    For now, the war’s opponents are focused on three strategies. One would be to cut off funds for the war, but there is currently no majority in either house for this. A second approach, expected to come from Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), would propose restrictions on troop deployments — for example, forbidding the redeployment of units that have been home for less than a year and imposing substantial training requirements on the troops who are sent.

    The Murtha measure would at least force a much-needed debate on the damage this war has done to our armed forces and the extraordinary burdens being borne by the brave minority of Americans who serve. It would also sidestep the political damage of doing anything that could be construed by Bush’s supporters as “failing to support our troops.”

    Yeah, we need more debate. Oswego, NY needs more snow, too. And the damage to our troops has already been done, EJ, in case you haven’t been paying attention. There’s already been a recorded incident of your side spitting at a wounded soldier – what more do you need. Murtha cloaks his disdain for the soldiers in pretty phrases about readiness and rest, but he still hates the fact that they might win.

    A third path, offered by Sens. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), would have Congress revisit its original 2002 Iraq resolution to make clear that the war authorized then (against Saddam Hussein and what turned out to be nonexistent weapons of mass destruction) had nothing to do with putting American troops in the midst of a Muslim civil war now.

    This is a setup to begin impeachment proceedings against the President by changing the rules at the end of the third quarter. I know the Left thinks Biden is a fricken rocket surgeon, but anyone who had to use other people’s research for a college paper probably shouldn’t be held in such high esteem by people who think college education is the answer to all of the world’s problems.

    And Dionne ends his piece with a quote from my very own Congressman – in all of his whining glory, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD);

    “The refusal of the administration to try to work with others to resolve this in a responsible manner has created a very polarized atmosphere,” Van Hollen said. “They’ve refused to listen to anyone else.”

    Maybe, Chris, that’s because you haven’t had a strategy. All you have is “we hate Bush” and “we hate Rumsfeld”. Have you bothered to read the ISG’s recommendations, Chris? It’s fantasy land nonsense written by politicians. Even Sandra Day O’Connor wondered what she even doing in the Group. So did the rest of us.

    Besides, why should the President pay you any notice? You’re not the commander-in-chief, according to the Constitution. You can declare war and fund it and that’s it. Period. The fact that Democrats can’t produce a coherent policy on Iraq is proof of the genious of our founding fathers. There is no compromise to victory – unless of course, victory is what you’re trying to avoid.

    So, I guess the whole point of today’s post is that EJ Dionne, John Murtha, Joe Biden and Chris Von Hollen are not generals – they’re political creatures looking for a political solution to a complex problem – none of them have had to lead troops in combat, none of them understand how their idiot ramblings affect the war and our enemies, so all of them should sit down and stfu. Especially, Little EJ Dionne.

  • Carl Levin’s idea of success

    I’m watching Carl Levin on Fox News Sunday describe limiting troop deployments to Iraq as “increasing the chance of success in Iraq”. How can fewer troops in a war zone enhance success? More trigger-pullers on the ground means more bullets the islamo-facists have to dodge while engaging in their particuar nefarious endeavors. 

    He described the Republican block of the Democrats’ non-binding resolution in the Senate as political gamesmanship. What, then, is the Democrat strategy of even introducing a non-binding rebuke of the President’s strategy, if not political gamesmanship? It’s not law, so why do they think it’s even necessary – unless they just want to satisfy their knee-jerk anti-war base for the time being.

    Did the Republican Congress pass any non-binding resolutions against the Clinton Administration’s foreign follies in Haiti, Bosnia or Kosovo. The, answer of course, is ‘no’. That would have been political gamesmanship. They gave him and the troops their full and complete support.

    No, Mr. Levin, putting more combat troops in Iraq doesn’t hinder our chance for success. I think on a weekend when even the Washington Post publishes an editorial (h/t Captain’s Quarters) condemning Democrats for flexing imaginary political muscles writing “[s]ome of the speeches [in the House] were little more than partisan rhetoric….” ya’all’d be a little more careful what you say. It seems that the fog is lifting a bit on ya’ll’s honeymoon with the press.

    The Post also asks, rightly;

    So why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations bill — an action Congress is clearly empowered to take — rather than try to micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional?

    The answer, of course, is that Murtha, Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Levin and the rest are just playing politics with the lives of our armed forces. The Post can’t ask that without knowing the answer.

    The Post went on to say that John Murtha, specifically, and Democrats, generally  are ignorant of the situation the situation in Iraq. But I think it’s worse than that. They know what’s going on in Iraq, they know the troops are winning, they know that the troops know they’re winning (like this troop’s email via Flopping Aces) and they’re ignoring it and intentionally mischaracterizing the war in front of the cameras. Murtha and Pelosi have seen for themselves, how can they be that ignorant without it being a purely poitical gambit designed to kill more American soldiers for political gain?

    Perhaps Mitch McConnell said it best in this morning’s Washington Times;

    “There is no place for chicanery at a time of war,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican. “Even some of the president’s most strident opponents know that. They know that the only vote that truly matters is a vote on whether to fund the troops.”

    See Sister Toldya for the video of Sam Johnson’s speech to the House last week. Then tell me Democrats support the troops.

    In the meantime, the “surge” continues. Read the Milblogs at Mudvile Gazette to keep up with the latest. 

  • General Murtha pretends to care about the troops

    According to Fox News‘ Greg Simmons, Murtha used an internet-broadcast interview with MoveCongress.org, a far-Left, anti-war website, to try to get his message out. His message? Screw the troops who are currently engaged in Iraq.

    According to his interview, Murtha claims;

    The Bush administration “won’t be able to continue. They won’t be able to do the deployment. They won’t have the equipment. They don’t have the training and they won’t be able to do the work,” Murtha said in the post on the Democrat-friendly Web site MoveCongress.org. “This vote will limit the options of the president and should stop this surge.”

    So with Sadr on the run, US troops in theater shifted around and pressing the enemy, Murtha wants to stop reinforcments and supplies from reaching those under fire at the moment.

    Murtha said the legislation would not necessarily deprive the administration of money but would redirect it, and it would be crafted to protect the troops, not harm them.

    “We need to make sure that everybody understands we’re going to support the troops. We’re going to give the troops everything they need. We’re not going to .. make any of them vulnerable,” Murtha said. “But we’re going to make darn sure that they have what they need before they go over.”

    By crafting legislation with those goals in mind, Murtha said, “that stops the surge for all intents and purposes.”

    What a juvenile, half-assed approach to war. How many more of our troops will be spilling their blood to feed John Murtha’s gagantuan ego while he hides behind troops yet to be deployed while sniping at the folks in theater?

    Murtha tones down the insane, threatening rhetoric for the mainstream media (more specifically the Washington Times’ Jon Ward);

    “This legislation will force the administration to consider alternatives rather than escalating,” said Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, describing limitations he intends to place on an appropriations bill next month.

    Of course, Dennis Kuscinich, the Emporer of Peace is a little more extreme;

     “The American people want us to get out of Iraq,” Mr. Kucinich said. “They expect Democrats to move quickly to end our involvement in Iraq. If Congress approves the supplemental appropriation, President Bush will have the money he needs to keep the war going through the end of his term.”

    Not only does Kuscinich not understand how to fight wars, he also doesn’t understand what the American people want. But then, which Democrat does. They constantly invoke the “American people” in their insane blather, but when was the last time they really listened to the American people?

    In the Senate, Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports that Dingy Harry Reid has called for a Saturday vote on the Iraq War resolution;

    “Time is of the essence,” Reid told a rapt audience in the Senate television studio yesterday afternoon. “That’s why the Senate will have another Iraq vote on Saturday.”

    I guess he thinks that pressuring the Senators to work a full week will frighten them into submission. Little Chuckie Schumer pipes in;

    The “vote on Saturday is a crucial vote not just for the moment or for the week, but for the history of America,” added an overwrought Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “We’re calling their bluff. We’re staying here. Now vote yes or no.”

    The Post also points out that he’s caused more of a distraction to Democrat presidential hopefuls than to Republicans, though. So who cares. I guess it’s too hopeful to wish that they’d drown in a river of their tears.

    And, according to the Washington Post, Joe Biden has a time machine;

    Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he will seek to repeal the 2002 congressional authorization for Bush to wage war in Iraq and substitute legislation that would narrow the mission of troops there and begin to bring some home.

    Haven’t the American people already been heard on that 2002 authorization? How does Biden think he can unfire that revolver? The only thing he can possible do is give aid and comfort to our enemies. But, I guess that’s Joe Biden’s way. Between Biden and Murtha, our enemies must pleased as pigs in clover. 

    And the President gets in his licks;

    But Bush, who has challenged lawmakers not to cut off funds for the troops, took a swipe at his critics during the day.

    “This may become the first time in the history of the United States Congress that it has voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose his plan that is necessary to succeed in that battle,” the president said.

    And at least some Republicans have something valuable to contribute;

    “The enemy wants our men and women in uniform to think their Congress doesn’t care about them,” said Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, who was a prisoner of war during Vietnam. “We must learn from our mistakes. We cannot leave a job undone like we left in Korea, like we left in Vietnam, like we left in Somalia,” Johnson said.

    Added Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky., a West Point graduate who was a flight commander with the Army’s 82nd Airborne: “This nonbinding resolution serves no purpose other than pacifying the Democrats’ political base and lowering morale in our military.”

    Unlike some others.

  • General Murtha speaks;

    All this yammering about Pelosi’s plane really didn’t interest me until I read this line from John Murtha;

    Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the Pelosi ally who chairs the House military appropriations subcommittee, said he has spoken to Pentagon officials about the need to provide Pelosi with a bigger plane that can fly passengers coast to coast in comfort.

    But he denied pressuring the Pentagon. “I don’t need to pressure them. I just tell them what they need to do,” Murtha said.

    I wonder if Big Shot Murtha ever read the Constitution  – the part where the President is the commander-in-chief of the military. No where does it say that some pickle-brained, pasty-faced, fat-assed, cut-and-run coward committee chairman gets to tell the military what they should do – especially by threatening to withold funding for REAL COMBAT SOLDIERS deployed in combat over something so petty as a non-stop flight for the Speaker.

    I’ll grant that she needs a plane and I’ll grant that the military should provide one, but I’ll not concede that Murtha has the right to denigrate the military by declaring that they need to follow his directions. Especially the way he’s treated combat troops in the near and distant past.

    This is just indicative of Murtha’s total disregard for this nation’s security – that he’s willing to sacrifice soldiers’ lives so he can suck up at lightspeed to Blinky the Botox Queen. As if we needed something else to point out his disregard.

     

  • “I am not an emperor or a queen. But neither am I a fool.”

    With those words, Nancy Pelosi fired William Jefferson from his House Ways and Means Committee posting according to the Washinton Post’s Michael Grunwald and Juliet Eilperin;

    To House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the answer was obvious: Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) had to give up his coveted spot on the Ways and Means Committee. But at the closed-door caucus meeting, several black Democrats complained that Pelosi was not their emperor or queen, while Jefferson implored his colleagues to keep him on Ways and Means for the sake of Hurricane Katrina’s victims. No one spoke up for Pelosi — except Pelosi.

    She began by praising Jefferson’s wife and five daughters: Jamila, Jalila, Jelani, Nailah and Akilah. But she quickly made it clear that Jefferson’s legal problems had become her political problem: “I am not an emperor or a queen. But neither am I a fool.”

    Pelosi explained that Democrats should be the party of ethics, that appearances count, that dealing forcefully with Jefferson’s scandal would help everyone else in the room. “You didn’t elect me emperor or queen,” she said. “You elected me leader.”

    But the two writers, later in the story wonder aloud the same questions we have;

    But it is not yet clear whether Jefferson’s ouster heralded a new era of honesty and accountability, or just a one-off political calculation inspired by the 2006 campaign. After the midterm elections, Pelosi ignored the ethical cloud around Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to support his bid to be majority leader, and she nearly chose Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.) to chair the intelligence committee even though the House once impeached him when he was a federal judge. And, in December, when Jefferson faced a fight for his political life in a runoff against state Rep. Karen R. Carter, a black Democrat with none of his ethical baggage, Pelosi refused to get involved.

    When she beats down allies like Murtha, I’ll believe Pelosi’s really there to change Congress’ image. But in the interim, I’ll take the WaPo’s image of her as Zena the Warrior Princess battling the CBC and the other opposing, partisan forces in Congress with more than one grain of salt.

    Barack Obama finally gets something right in the Washington Post today;

    The truth is, we cannot change the way Washington works unless we first change the way Congress works. On Nov. 7, voters gave Democrats the chance to do this. But if we miss this opportunity to clean up our act and restore this country’s faith in government, the American people might not give us another one.

    As Little Green Footballs points out, we now have a Klansman third in line of succession to the Presidency. Flopping Aces comments and quotes Victor Davis Hanson on the ethics of the Democrats.

  • Murtha; I thought we were above “swiftboating”

    Now I don’t know what public attacks John Murtha is talking about, but he claims he’s being “swiftboated” by fellow Democrats. This, um, term is getting too much use lately. And it’s being used out of context – and apparently any showboating Democrat veteran who stands on the bodies of his dead comrades for political gain uses it to protect themselves from opponents. Any opponents.

    John Kerry was swiftboated; the men he served with in combat came out and told the truth about the lies he’d been telling for years for political gain and to protect himself from anyone finding out the truth. John Kerry could’ve avoided being swiftboated by signing his Form 180 and releasing his military records. Kerry could’ve even taken the Swiftboaters to court (like he threatened to do) and eased the voters minds. But he chose to play the victim and to wring his hands about the unfairness of the questions rather than answering the questions – that’s being swiftboated.

    And now Cut and Run Murtha thinks he can do the same thing. There have been questions about Murtha’s service, too. Questions he’s had to answer – but he hasn’t. This little three paragraph brainfart in the HuffPo doesn’t qualify as an answer, fat boy. All we ever hear about is 31 years of Marine service – most of which was served in Camp Livingroom.

    One year as an Ops weinie doesn’t make you a war hero. 31 years commanding some “special infantry company” (what is a “special infantry company”, anyway? Is it like special olympics?) after dodging the Korean War doesn’t make you a war hero, either.

    Only a chickenshit coward would hide behind a hollow phrase like swiftboating. Stand up and take it like the man you’ve never been, John Murtha.

  • Democrats propose “redeployment”

    On ABC’s “This Week”, little Joey Biden and fat-ass Carlie Levin adopted the language of “Cut and Run” John Murtha and proposed “redeployment” from Iraq. They can’t summon enough testicular fortitude to call it what it is; de-Iraq-ization in the Left’s muddled language of the Vietnam era.

    They’d love nothing more than to have photos of US troops scrambling to a waiting helicopter on the roof of the US embassy under fire or footage of US sailors pushing helicopters into the Persian Gulf from the decks of US carriers. They pee themselves a little just thinking about it.

    We’ve already got the soon-to-be Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Pat Leahy taking the terrorists’ side;

    …Leahy is drafting a bill to undo portions of the new law in an effort to restore habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants.

    A spokeswoman for Leahy told the newspaper the bill would be intended to repeal portions of the law that prevent some detainees from pursuing federal court challenges to the government’s authority to hold them indefinitely.

    And Pelosi has decided to reward Murtha’s cowardice with a post as House Democratic Leader – odd that Murtha has never led troops in combat, but now he’ll get to lead them away from combat – hence the name “Cut and Run” John Murtha.

    Levin lied about the American voters when he went on to say;

     “The people spoke dramatically, overwhelmingly, resoundingly, to change the course in Iraq,” he said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” The Senate’s “first order of business is to change the direction of Iraq policy.”

    Of course, given history, we know any Democrat victory is a “mandate” (including a 43% popular vote, apparently), but Levin’s ass is showing in this statement. Maybe he’d be right if any Democrat had put forth a plan for the Iraq War before the election, but we were denied access to any plan other than the vagueries of Pelosi’s “drain the swamp” plan.

    Only after victory can Democrats claim to have any kind of a plan. The American voters might have decided differently if the Democrats decided to tell us specifically what they had in mind. Of course, if the Democrats had told us what was on their minds in the beginning, they wouldn’t be the Democrats we all know.

    Maybe if Democrats had any sort of successful record of using military force in the last 60 years, we might listen to them when it comes to strategy. But the only thing they’ve been able to do with any great success is leave the enemy choking in their dust.Â