On Thu, 1 Dec 2005 16:36:23 -0600, Denys Beauchemin 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Murtha didn't even vote in favor of his own motion in Congress; he's just a
>confused, useful idiot.

Denys,

seems you are slowly in the minority with your opinion.
Everybody who doesn't support GWB is an idiot. How easy but lacks your 
usual show of intelligence.
Even George and Dick think highly of him. Therefore you must too.
;->

 How Murtha's call to exit Iraq plays back home 
By Gail Russell Chaddock, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor 
Fri Dec 2, 3:00 AM ET

LATROBE, PA. - The big news in Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district 
this week is the opening of deer-hunting season, the Steelers' big loss to 
the Colts, and Rep. John Murtha, the unexpected new face of the antiwar 
movement. 
 
To voters here in the state's troubled coal and steel belt, Congressman 
Murtha is best known for bringing home the bacon - and his dogged support 
for the US military. That's why this 17-term Democrat's call on Nov. 17 for 
US troops to pull out of 
    
Iraq took many of his constituents - and the White House - by surprise.

But as the shock and awe of this decorated Marine veteran's calls for 
withdrawal wears off, two issues still grip voters here: Is the war in Iraq 
still winnable? And is victory worth the price?

For many who no longer support the war - and all those who never did - 
Murtha's call for a new direction fits their own conviction that the war is 
past winning. Others see such talk as a betrayal of patriotism comparable 
to the backlash against the Vietnam War.

It's a debate that's intensifying. On Wednesday, President Bush laid out 
his vision for winning the war. Just hours later, House Democratic leader 
Nancy Pelosi, who as recently as Nov. 18 had urged her caucus to vote 
against "immediate" troop withdrawal, endorsed Murtha's call.

Back in his district, Murtha, famously camera-shy, was presiding over a 
breakfast with local officials to discuss jobs, sewers, and how to find 
federal funds to beautify two blocks of downtown Latrobe. Television crews 
from Japan, Sweden, and Norway covered the event. Friday night, he is a big 
draw for a Democratic fundraiser in Boston.

"I've been going through this Iraq thing," he told locals at Latrobe. "We 
missed a window of opportunity.... We have to change direction, and that's 
going to happen. However [Bush administration officials] try to phrase it, 
it's going to happen. But I hope they listen to me, because less people 
will be killed."

It's a message that sets off strong - and mixed - views among his 
constituents, many of whom have ties to men and women serving in Iraq.

"I feel great about what he said," says Don Carns, a construction worker 
dropping in for lunch at the Byers-Tosh Post of the American Legion in 
Ligonier, Pa. "Bring the kids back. It's a millionaire's war, and the poor 
people suffer."

But combat veteran Chris Williams, in Johns-town, worries that Murtha's 
call for a pullout will demoralize Americans in Iraq and undermine a war 
effort that the US can't afford to lose. "It's a shame people are dying. 
I'm a Vietnam veteran, and it was a shame people had to die there, too. But 
it's the right thing," he says. "These people are free."

While more than 80 percent of phone calls, faxes, letters, and e-mails to 
Murtha's office support his stance, the flood of letters at the Tribune-
Democrat newspaper in Johnstown, is more evenly split. "The last time 
anything generated such a groundswell was the contested presidential 
election" of 2000, says Tribune-Democrat editor Chip Minemyer, who has 
added pages to accommodate all the letters from readers.

"Murtha's finest hour," writes a retired news anchor from Johnstown's NBC-
affiliate WJAC. "He deserves another medal," writes a Murtha opponent from 
his 1990 election. "I voted for him in every election, but I won't vote for 
him again," writes a Marine in Northern Cambria, Pa. "He is 100 percent off 
base ... if he believes his position is shared by his constituents in the 
military," writes a former Johnstown resident, now with the US Army Special 
Forces at Fort Bragg, N.C.

In fact, public support for the war in Iraq has been dropping steadily, 
along with Mr. Bush's approval ratings, says Terry Madonna, director of the 
Keystone Poll at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. "Some of 
these conservative bloggers have taken off after Murtha, but within his 
district, he's pretty rock solid."

In historical terms, Murtha's stand on the Iraq war could prove to be as 
important as the late Sen. J. William Fulbright's turn against the Vietnam 
War in 1966. That move jump-started congressional opposition to the war.

"Fulbright was the senator who literally pushed the Gulf of Tonkin 
Resolution through the Senate for Lyndon Johnson, then turned against the 
war," says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Boston 
University. "With Murtha, it's the drama of a hawk's hawk saying, 'It's not 
working.' It's very powerful. That's why it's so hard for the 
administration to stop it."

What counts to his constituents isn't Murtha's standing in the US Congress, 
but his record in getting federal money to his district. You don't have to 
travel far in the 12th district to find his name - from the John P. Murtha 
Regional Airport to the John P. Murtha Institute for 
    
Homeland Security at a local campus of the University of Pennsylvania.

"He's been absolutely vital to the transformation of our area," says Daniel 
DeVos, President and CEO of Concurrent Technologies Corporation, a 
nonprofit in Johnstown that Murtha helped launch with contracts for 
military modernization. "All the important systems for modernization of our 
armed forces are getting stretched way out. This is what our company does, 
and we're sacrificing our future for a very uncertain war. I'm very 
thankful that he spoke out as he did," he adds.

"I thought Saddam Hussein had something to do with all the terror in the 
world and if we got rid of him, things would get better. But enough is 
enough," says Karen Taranto, co-owner of Tower of Pizza across from the war 
memorial in the heart of Johnstown. 

The fact that Murtha would say it first means something. "He's a king 
around here," she says. "He helped my husband gain his citizenship when no 
one else would help."

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