Becoming More Stupid By Reading The Washington Post

See, the problem is hack reporting. Rep. John Murtha is not a some kind of modern day Winston Churchill who has suddenly reversed his attitude about Iraq. That's what the Post would have you believe.

If you want to run a story about a near-hysterical congressman (have you watched the video?) calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, well, it's your front page, have a nice day.

But someone may read what you say about him. You're kind of obligated to accurately characterize his record.

And this is interesting--there's very little in Charles Babington's account, Hawkish Democrat Joins Call For Pullout, to document why we should care.

There's the headline describing Murtha as a Hawkish Democrat.  In the story itself, Murtha is described as The top House Democrat on military spending matters, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, and a hawkish ex-Marine who voted for the war and has close ties to the military.

That's it. Most of the story covers reactions to Murtha, and Murtha's reaction to the reactions. If you want more informaton about the guy, you have to leave Babington and read Dana Milbank, who provides detail on Murtha's military decorations when he isn't counting how many American flags are in Rep. Duncan Hunter's tie. Welcome to the summit of American journalism.

Meanwhile, Babington's front-pager makes sense only if Murtha has been a solid Bush ally on the war,  and that's how it's written. But anyone who's cruised the net this morning knows that isn't true.

Sometimes Murtha has supported it, other times he's been part of the fringe on the left. Gateway Pundit has a roundup on what we might call the John Murtha Random Position Generator. Examples:

• Oct. 9, 2002: “Obviously we have reason to be concerned about Saddam Hussein -- there’s no question that he’s a real threat to us and we need to make sure he’s not developing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons to use against us or against other nations in the Middle East....
• Sept. 16, 2003: The Democrat, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a decorated Vietnam veteran, said that he had been misled into voting for the war by incorrect information from top administration officials and that the president had also been misled. Mr. Murtha was joined in his call for high-level resignations by Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader.
• May 6, 2004: ... in this morning's edition of the Capitol Hill newspaper, "Roll Call," Murtha is quoted as describing the ongoing conflict in Iraq as "unwinnable," and saying the administration doesn't know what it's doing there.
• Sept. 17, 2004: Rep. John Murtha accused the Bush administration Friday of delaying a new military call up until after the election. "I have learned through conversations with officials at the Pentagon that at the beginning of November, 2004, the Bush Administration plans to call up large numbers of the military Guard and Reserves, to include plans that they previously had put off to call up the Individual Ready Reserve."...
• March 17 2004: A Captain's Quarters poster finds that Murtha was voted against HR 557, which passed 327-93, a sense-of-the-House proclamation that affirms the world is safer with the defeat of Saddam Hussein and praises the Iraqi people and the U.S. military for their courage and the adoption of an interim constitution.

There's more, much more, at Gateway (Links to sources over there; I don't want to rip off the guy too much). Kaus has more. Examining Murtha's record is like one-stop shopping for all your Iraqi War needs. Including, as a Gateway Pundit commenter notes, Murtha's vote to revive the draft. That one failed 402-2, and deserved to since it was a political stunt cooked up by Rep. Charle Rangel to undercut support for Bush and the war.

All of which eluded the multilayered fact-checking abilities of the Post's editors and Charles Babington, Peter Baker, Shailagh Murray and Dana Milbank, the latter three listed as having contributed to this report. Nice work.