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November 28, 2005
Player of the Week for Nov. 28, 2005 - John Murtha
Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha wins our Political Sports Player of the Week Award for his strong statements calling for the U.S. to bring our troops home from Iraq. Creating a firestorm for the White House, Murtha, a strong military proponent, said that we have accomplished all that we could and that the time to come home is now.
But the cross-party relationship has soured as Murtha, whose concern has always been first and foremost for the men and women who serve in the military, has reached the conclusion that the Iraq intervention has steered U.S. troops into a quagmire from which they must be extracted. Typically blunt, Murtha said this week: "The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring (the troops) home."
Others have called for withdrawing U.S. troops but it is Murtha who elicited not only a strong response from his former friend, Dick Cheney,
In the 2004 vice presidential debate, Cheney noted that, "One of my strongest allies in Congress when I was Secretary of Defense was Jack Murtha, a Democrat who is chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee." The vice president was particularly complimentary over the years of the Pennsylvania representatives decision to provide high-profile backing of the administration's 2002 request for authorization to use force against
Iraq............Cheney's response to the man he begged to help him understand military affairs during the first Bush administration was to rip into Murtha and other Democrats who had tried to work with the administration. "Some of the most irresponsible comments have, of course, come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorising force against Saddam Hussein," the vice president growled in a speech to the conservative Frontiers of Freedom Institute. In another clear reference to Murtha, Cheney said, "The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone -- but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history."
but from Ohio Republican Jean Schmidt here,
Schmidt was booed off the floor of the U.S. House on Friday after she criticized Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., saying that "cowards cut and run, Marines never do."
When Schmidt made the comment, Democrats rose in protest at the suggestion that Murtha, a decorated Vietnam veteran and the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, was a coward.
Great plays are oftentimes the result of timing, when conditions coalesce in just the right way. Murtha was not the first to call for removing first and he will not be the last, but his qualifications, being a highly decorated Marine, coupled with Jean Schmidt's idiotic statements, Cheney's attacks, the growing problems in Iraq, and increasing evidence of the White House misleading the country about going to war, all worked in his favor to create a "Perfect Storm". Our congratulations for Congressman Murtha for this week's award.
Posted by Chip Spear at November 28, 2005 10:37 AM