John Murtha

When Nancy Pelosi took impeachment "off the table" during the 2006 campaign, what was her justification? She said the most important reason to elect a Democratic majority was to give them "subpoena power."

Well We the People beat the unbeatable Bush-Rove political juggernaut, elected Democratic majorities, and made Pelosi the Speaker of the House. And then the Democratic chairs of the various committees started issuing subpoenas. And then White House counsel Fred Fielding told the Democrats (politely and very slowly) to go Cheney themselves.

So now Speaker Pelosi has to make a decision - whether to enforce those hard-earned Democratic subpoenas, or simply throw them into the trash can.

Doing the bidding of Karl Rove as usual, NPR's Melissa Block pressed Rep. John Murtha on impeachment.

A. There are 4 ways you can influence a president.
First of all there's the polls which didn't influence him.
Second of all there's an election, which should have influenced the president and had some influence- he fired his secretary of defense.
Third there's impeachment.
And fourth there's the power of the purse.
We're using the power of the purse to negotiate with the president.
And I hope we'll be able to work out a compromise.
We want to work with the president to end this long conflict where our troops are caught in a civil war.

It looks like our impeachment efforts are making a real difference. Last week, when Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment for Dick Cheney, the Pentagon Post's Dana Milbank portrayed Kucinich as nuts. But if that was Karl Rove's way of trying to scare "respectable" Democrats away from Impeachment, that strategy backfired "bigtime," as Dick Cheney would say. Think Progress reports:

Certificate of Ownership: 110th Congress Buys the War by stacybannerman Saturday 24 March 2007
Busy week here on the Hill, and I’m sure you know that the 110th Congress just bought the war in Iraq. On Monday, the 19th, the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Military Families Speak Out held a press conference on the steps of the Cannon House building. We unveiled the Certificate of Ownership, complete with warranty – the brainchild of MFSO member Tammara Rosenleaf, who stayed with me and is planning to return in April. (You can download the certificate at www.mfso.org)... (more)

If it's Friday, it's time to take a look at what's been floating around the political world this week and that I haven't commented on, might have slipped under your radar or has just flat-out been too silly for you to notice…

Nancy's Got Guts - House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s choice of John Murtha to be the new House Majority Leader, her steadfast support of his candidacy and Murtha's loss to Steny Hoyer, hardly spell an initial political defeat for the most powerful person in the new House of Representatives. If anything, it bodes well for the kind of true leadership we can expect from Pelosi, who had to know Hoyer would win and, accepting the political consequences, stuck by Murtha right up until the vote yesterday.

TELL OUR DEMOCRATS THAT JOHN MURTHA DESERVES TO BE HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER

ELECT MURTHA LEADER: http://www.peaceteam.net/leader_murtha.php

There are two candidates in the running for House Majority Leader this Thursday, and they are both fine men. However, by his strong stand on reploying our troops out of Iraq, and by doing so at a time when many others were just going along with the Bush administration's stay the atrocities policy, John Murtha has earned the right to be selected for this position. Simply put, John Murtha deserves to be leader because of his LEADERSHIP.

John Murtha has stood up for us with courage on this issue. That's all we care about. Now it's time for us to stand up for him

If you have a Democratic member of the House of Representatives in your district, please submit this form to send them an instant message by email. Please also call toll-free at 800-828-0498 or 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803 and ask for your house member by name.

Even those of us who have watched the Republican smear machine for years have been sickened at how the GOP has coordinated its attacks against Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) for the crime of speaking out against our continued involvement in Iraq. After all, Murtha is only a highly-decorated combat Veteran, with 37 years in the Marine Corps, so who better to go after his patriotism and military record than a bunch of Republican Chickenhawks who have never served our country themselves?

Taylor Marsh comes to the rescue today on the subject of these attacks with an incredible piece of work called The Swiftboating of John Murtha and spells out in fascinating and repulsive detail what Murtha has endured over the last year.

By Bob Geiger

In addition to the smears I described yesterday by Diana Irey against Congressman John Murtha, the Irey campaign also sent out an e-mail blast last week denouncing Murtha for allegedly saying that "the United States poses a greater threat to world peace than nuclear threats in North Korea and Iran."

The problem is, they did it long after the newspaper that originally published the story printed a correction saying they had misrepresented Murtha's remarks.

The Irey campaign sent an e-mail to supporters at 5 PM on Thursday, June 29, castigating Murtha, gushing about Irey's appearances with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and praising the talking heads' goal of continuing "…to focus on exposing Jack Murtha's latest outrageous statements."

"Between you and me, I don't know which one was worse," wrote Irey in the e-mail. "Was it saying we could 'redeploy' our troops from Iraq to Okinawa and still defend our interests just as well? Or was it his declaration that the United States poses a greater threat to world peace than nuclear threats in North Korea and Iran?"

A little detail that Irey didn't bother to mention was that the South Florida Sun-Sentinel had already corrected its story the day before with the following statement:

By Bob Geiger

Although I spend the majority of my time covering the United States Senate, I'm not sure many of this year's 33 Senate races will achieve quite the same slime factor as we can expect out of the crew trying to upset Congressman John Murtha in Pennsylvania's 12th district.

And attempts to smear Murtha, distort his record and, amazingly, try to minimize the courage and guts of a highly-decorated Veteran, who served 37 years in the Marine Corps, have already begun.

His opponent is little-known Republican Diana Irey, a Washington County Commissioner who appears to now specialize in attacking Murtha's patriotism and Iraq-war stance despite -- and don't you just know this one is coming? -- having never served in the military herself.

Jason Davidek, a former staffer to Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) and now Irey's campaign manager, sent out a doozy of an e-mail to supporters yesterday bashing Murtha and begging for cash.

"Thanks to your support and the support of thousands of people like you, we've got Jack Murtha on the run," begins the oozy transmission.

In his quiet moments, Rep. John Murtha must sometimes catch himself thinking about how much easier his life would be if he had just kept his damn mouth shut and gone along to get along on the Iraq war. The Democrat, who has represented Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District for 32 years, began angering the Republican party in late 2005 when, having seen enough of the Bush administration's incompetence, he became the most vocal critic of the White House's failed and dishonest Iraq policies.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It's a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," said Murtha, in November 2005, in calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. "The American public is way ahead of the members of Congress. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq. But it's time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf regime."