Murtha's Disgrace
The media made much of Rep. John Murtha's call to withdraw immediately from Iraq. "Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty, It's time to bring them home," he said.

Republicans, of course, responded:

We have nothing but respect for Congressman Murtha's service to his country," White House communications director Nicolle Wallace said Friday on NBC's "Today" show. "And I think he spoke from the heart yesterday. We happen to have a real serious policy disagreement with him."

Rep. Sam Johnson (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, a 29-year Air Force veteran who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for nearly seven years, called Murtha's position unconscionable and irresponsible. "We've got to support our troops to the hilt and see this mission through," he said.

"They want us to retreat. They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

The reason this is an issue is related in the tag to the story:

With a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, Murtha retired from the Marine Corps reserves as a colonel in 1990 after 37 years as a Marine, only a few years longer than he's been in Congress. Elected in 1974, Murtha has become known as an authority on national security whose advice was sought out by Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Murtha's shift from an early war backer to a critic advocating withdrawal reflects plummeting public support for a war that has cost more than $200 billion and led to the deaths of more than 2,000 U.S. troops.

Except, the story completely misrepresents the event. Murtha did the same thing a year and a half ago, as noted in Drudge:

Murtha: 'We cannot prevail in this war'
By The Associated Press
Friday, May 7, 2004


WASHINGTON (AP) -- A statement from a pro-defense Democrat that the Pentagon's current military strategy in Iraq makes the war unwinnable drew a sharp rebuke Thursday from Republicans, who accused Democrats of using the war for political gain.
The furor over the position taken by Rep. John Murtha, of Johnstown, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense panel, highlighted the increasingly partisan divide over the current course and future of the war in Iraq.

"We cannot prevail in this war as it is going today," Murtha said yesterday at a news conference with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. Murtha said the incidents of prisoner abuse in Iraq were a symptom of a problem in which U.S. troops in Iraq are undermanned, inadequately equipped and poorly trained.

Once again, the mainstream media assumes that its readers cannot do a Google search.
- posted by Base10 @ 8:52 AM