Shailagh Murray Resumes the John Murtha Whitewash

I had a brief glimmer of hope when the Washington Post congressional reporter Shailagh Murray acknowledged in a live chat that Rep. John Murtha's record on the Iraq war needed to be addressed. No more. In Friday's The About-Face of a Hawkish Democrat, Murray resumes our reglularly scheduled programming, where we're not supposed to know that he long ago claimed he was misled about WMD, joined with Rep. Pelosi in calling for high-level administration resignations, accused Bush of delaying a major military callup until after the presidential election, and joined a small minority in voting against a resolution declaring the world safer for having been rid of Saddam. The only item Murray refers to that might disrupt the Hawkish Democrat narrative is Murtha's support for a draft, but she mentions it in passing without setting in context the fact that this was a political stunt engineered by Rep. Charles Rangel to boost opposition to the war.

Murtha is a war veteran who supports the military but has been critical of the Iraq War for a long time. Despite the theme music being played by the Post, he's not one of its strongest supporters who suddenly has moved against it. The truth about Murtha is not some dense level of subtlety that can't fit into a newspaper, so I leave it to otherwise cheerful holiday PostWatch readers to decide for themselves why the Post cannot bear to print it.

Update: I've read the story again, and see the technique perhaps more clearly: Murtha's Hawkish Democrat credentials are based on past wars and past presidents. Let's talk about this one, shall we? From the start he has been a self-described reluctant supporter of the war, and a critic at various times since then.

Or let's put it this way: Self-described but not Post-described.

And I could write a whole 'nother post on Murray's tucking this into the end:

He was one of the few Democrats to publicly advocate the reinstatement of the draft. In a CNN interview in May 2004, Murtha said that although "it would be an international disaster I think if we pulled out . . . the alternative is, we're going to struggle along, get more and more young people killed."

But moving right along, back to the Hawkish Democrat...

 

Comments

[Crazy Politico]

Again, they don't publish the full facts on Murtha because if they did, the idea of "hawkish" goes out the window. Then he just becomes another anti-war Dem, and they need someone who "served" and is "hawkish" on the left. Since Kerry has already been discredited he can't be that voice.

[Christopher Fotos]

Hi, Crazy, thanks for the link before--tried to leave a comment on your blog but--I am a very impatient guy--threw up my hands at the (entirely reasonable) log-in procedure at your site.