Republicans are Swiftboating Murtha. The Swiftboating is On!

The shit is here.

Murtha's reply is here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-john-murtha/questions-about-my-record_b_13759.html

01.13.2006
Questions About My Record (6 comments )
READ MORE: Rep. John Murtha

This afternoon, CNSNEWS.com published an article entitled "Murtha's War Hero Status Called Into Question" on its website. The article questions the validity of my purple hearts. This is my response:

"Questions about my record are clearly an attempt to distract attention from the real issue, which is that our brave men and women in uniform are dying and being injured every day in the middle of a civil war that can be resolved only by the Iraqis themselves."

"I volunteered for a year's duty in Vietnam. I was out in the field almost every single day. We took heavy casualties in my regiment the year that I was there. In my fitness reports, I was rated No. 1. My record is clear."

in focusing on what is going on in Iraq right now. After talking with my apolitical coworker a while back, I'm beginning to think that this bs isn't working any more. He knows the repukes are snowing us on a lot of things, but just isn't sure there is anything to do about it.

Fire away. Murtha will get an even louder voice.

should hold their heads in shame.

Do they have no shame?

Not only that, but CNSnews.com looks enough like CBS that it fooled me for several seconds.

:puke:

Fight fire with fire and dig up dirt on Bozell, and all the other fools who play politic this way.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brent_Bozell

might be a starting point.

credible simply because of that association. We should all just purchase Spongebob dolls and flood their stupid headquarters. . .and, by the way, send an email to Chick-Fil-A asking why they aren't concentrating more on their chicken sandwich instead of passing out Focus on the Family toys with their children's meals.

We've had the wonderful opportunity to see the "conservative" alternative to what they call the "liberal" media. . .with bald-faced lies, a penchant for willful distortion, a total disregard for both facts and balance. I think his organizations are proof positive that the only thing that was ever "liberal" about the media was the idea that the American people ever deserved any sense of truth.

chickenshitnooze.

Their smears are SO obvious. They only seems to question the record of Shrub critics.

Only if there is video or film footage of the actual incident, signed affidavits by senior officers and sworn testimony of the attending physicians should a Democrat ever be awarded a medal of any kind. And then only if a oversight board comprised entirely of Republicans voted unanimously.

It's well known that the only reason a Democrat would enlist and put his life on the line would be for some future political gain.

:sarcasm:

What does it take for the public to call these rat bastards out on their name calling shit?

I'm an easy going guy, but this shit really gets under my skin.

I'm a veteran, my wife's a veteran, both of my parents are veterans, her father is a veteran and so on. Our family knows what it means to serve your country. I would never paint a fellow veteran in a bad light, I would support them.

This is purely a partisan action. And it reeks.

Like Vasquez in "Aliens" said: "All right. We got seven canisters of CN-20. I say we roll them in there and nerve gas the whole fucking nest."

Brent Bozell. Nephew of William Buckley. Family too good to be stained by actual service in the military.

each time they slime another veteran, GEORGE BUSH'S AWOL STATUS will be all over the place again.


Murtha should call out this bozo. Let them meet and hash this out on National Television. Let him bring the record of what he has done for his country, and let Murtha bring his. Let the people decide whether this bozo is good enough to shine Murtha's shoes.

Murtha should call a press conference, and then hold up this piece of thrash article and challenge that slimeball to meet on television to end this once for all. Face to face, like a man, instead of from the safety of his computer.

I would like to know why that creep isn't in Iraq right now!!

their opponents.

A media that points out the american people that this is the same thing they did to Kerry and the military records prove their lying.

The Professor

They tacitly admity that the Kerry accusations might be suspect, but that these are real. (They say that the SBVT hated Kerry because he was anti-war in 1971, but that the Murtha accusations pre-date his anti-war stance.

At some point, the republicans looked around the republican room and decided that they had nothing to lose by going after war records.

Democrats should sponsor a new award within the DOD designed to 'honor' those who never served in uniform and smear those who did.

recently retired "uniforms" take some serious umbrage if this shit keeps up.

One thing you can say about Jack Murtha, he has always been a true and sincere friend to the military in his performance of duty in the House. He gets the respect because he really has earned it.

and I take serious umbrage at the shit spewed forth by "conservatives." However my disdain for bush and his base could not possibly be worse than it has been all along. He is a coward. They are cowards. And bush will march headstrong into Iran without their warm bodies in uniform.

senior leaders who were in policymaking slots and interfaced with Murtha regularly. I know they are bullshit about this, and I am hoping they will get together at the Army Navy club or where ever it might be convenient for the bulk of them, and come up with a plan to throw down, if this nonsense persists.

General Shinseki is a man of honor. However, I would strongly urge him to call a press conference at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and set the record straight. Not only did bush lie, he ignored the advice of the senior officer in the Army for political reasons. General Shinseki could rock his world. And I would invite any and all chickenhawk dispersions of the man. The more evidence of their treason the better.

chickenshit, chickenhawk conservative republican motherfuckers wonder why they are held in such low esteem. COL Murtha is being a Marine. He is adapting, improvising, overcoming, looking for a solution to an obvious problem with no consideration of politics and what do the cowards do? Trash the man. But they who publish such garbage know their audience, the cowards who hide in places like free republic and in KKK klaverns, who choose not to raise their right hand and enlist. Cowards who impugn the integrity of a hero. That, in a nutshell, is the bush base.

How many conservative cowards are going to volunteer to fight in Iran?

about vets

:puke:

counter this kind of filthy smear job more publicly and effectively? Maybe the DNC should take out full page ads to call them out on it. Otherwise, it just keeps bouncing around out there in cyberspace. SG

war hero, but if you try to run an ad showing what Tom DeLay has been up to, it gets banned in Houston, cause DeLay is threatening to sue.... Fucked up if you asked me...

I can't help but play "count the chins" when I look at that picture.

...you don't buy them at 7-11.

I am so sick of Republicans saying that they SUPPORT the military...but then they turn around and SLANDER soldiers who have been awarded medals by the military!

(I hated what they did to John Kerry, and now they are doing it to Murtha. )

Democrats to Republicans:

You say that you support the military... then why don't you support the former soldiers who were given medals by the military?

And sick.

Do these bastards only know the one trick?

to win the game.

The 4th estate blocks for them. Blame them as much as you blame these bastards.

Let us watch and see how much it actually matters either way.

Having the story be told by a man now too sickly to speak to the press is special. I assume that the military does a reasonable job checking before giving medals. I assume they want the records to find something embarrassing somewhere in his long career.

Perhaps the sleaziest paragraph in a way is when they want to disassociate themselves from the SBVT possibly because Kerry did release his records, is this:

"The Murtha controversy is reminiscent of the flap surrounding the war record of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. But while critics like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacked Kerry in 2004 because of his anti-war activism of the 1970s, Murtha's three chief accusers all made their allegations years and in some cases decades before Murtha emerged last November as a prominent anti-war activist."

But where was the apology to Kerry.

so the Republicans smelled blood and pounced.

We'll see how it turns out, but rememeber, the GOP successfully turned the war hero into a traitor and the deserter into a war hero in 2004. There is no longer accounting for the truth any longer in politics. It's all about the show now.

how dare they smear other soldiers, in service of those who never served. Those filthy sons-of-bitches.

because you shouldn't get a medal if it was your own grenade that blew your limbs off while jumping into a hot LZ. They are the lowest of the low, even if someone invented a time machine then transported them back to when the event happened I suspect there would still be claims of Liberal bias in the space-time continuum.

No doubt to further his career.

..they will insist that ALL Republicans refrain from slandering ANY decorated WAR HERO.

...DEFEND JOHN MURTHA!

Tell the Republicans that if the support the military....then they SHOULD support all of the military's WAR HEROES.

(It was disgraceful what the Democratic party let happen to Kerry...don't make the same mistake twice.)

Repubs can't debate the man on his present day statments, so they go poking around in the toilet for dirt. Repukes are scum personified.

when you are afforded these medals you should know they come with a disclaimer:

We reserve the right to question the awarding of these medals unless recipient is a member in good standing of the Repug Party

I don't think it's going to work, by the way. Repub credibility is way down now, and there is a limit to how many times they can smear in the very same way and be believed. They're going to look really transparent to most people.

Stand on your own two feet you fucking COWARDS! Enough already. WTF have the Repukes done for America lately? Huh? Damn draft-dodging, lily-livered pieces of shit need a reality check.

Peace.

Appalling.

This is the kind of thing that CONs throw into people's faces at water coolers. CON's have names, dates, actions, while we have NOTHING.

Murtha has thus far refused to release his own military records
Murtha admitted during an emotional conversation on the floor of the U.S. House in the early 1980s that he did not deserve his Purple Hearts
Saylor's office determined that Murtha lacked sufficient evidence of wounds.
Arab-scam ABSCAM: he asked the fake sheik to consider investing some money in his struggling home town, Johnstown

All of this is answerable. The rest of the stuff is he said/she said enemies/ex-friends.
We need return ammo.

re-elected here in his home district, PA-12.

ABSCAM: He turned down the fake sheik's offer of money. The people of Johnstown know that he is in Congress to look after their needs, not to line his own pockets.

The return ammo is that Murtha will return to office more respected than ever. The people of western PA are not going to take the Bush administration's treatment of Murtha...and it WILL have ramifications for them in districts other than Murtha's. Melissa Hart, for instance, could be in big trouble. She's been a Bush and Delay toadie all along.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x123401
thread title (1-12-06 GD): HuffPo: Bush Admin. Launched Secret Smear Campaign Against Murtha…

They really hate that he's telling the truth about Iraq and is so much more believable than they are:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x125200
thread title (1-12-06 GD): Murtha: "Situation in Iraq IS Civil War"- & al-Hakim showed this yesterday

Here's the fine analysis of the Murtha Swiftboating by firedoglake's Jame Hamsher:
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_01_08_firedoglake_archive.html#113718711694799420

Here are the updates at the end of this great post by Jane (more may be put up later - check back at firedoglake):

Update: Per Jeff B. in the comments (http://www.cnsnews.com/corporate/staffbios.asp): "Marc {Morano - coauthor of the smear piece, "Murtha's War Hero Status Called Into Question"} was also a reporter and producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show from 1992 to 1996."

And from DKos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/20/144858/09): "Murtha turned down the bribe. The video of him being offered the bribe, refusing it, and getting up and walking out was shown on national TV. He even testified against two Congressmen in their trials." (thanks Slothrop)

GET THE WORD OUT ON THE LIES ABOUT MURTHA!!! And be sure to read the whole post by jane Hamsher - more gems are there and she calls it perfectly.

He lost the last 4 elections he ran in, one to Murtha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_A._Bailey

Political Career
After a very contested primary and very close general election, Bailey was elected to the US House from PA-21 in 1978. He won an impressive reelection bid in 1980, despite the general Republican victory that year, garnering about 70% of the vote. Bailey served on the House "Ways and Means" Committee.

In 1982, after redistricting by the state legislature, Bailey's district was largely merged into the Twelfth Congressional District of Pennsylvania with fellow Democrat John Murtha, who had been serving since 1974. In a strongly fought primary, Bailey lost. Interestingly, when the Republican nominee for the seat withdrew the same year, Bailey was seriously considered as a replacement; he came in a very strong second at the Republican nominating convention held that year. This underscores that he was viewed as a conservative Democrat.

In 1984, Bailey, after yet another contested primary, became the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania Auditor General that year; he handily won the General Election; he was the only Democratic nominee to win statewide that year. During his tenure as Auditor General, Bailey established the first work-site child daycare facility in Pennsylvania government, established minimum education standards for state auditors, and generally modernized auditing procedures.

Despite Bailey's electoral success in 1984, he lost a bitter primary battle with then Congressman Bob Edgar (D, PA-7) for the US Senate seat in 1986. In a close race in 1988, he lost his reelection bid for Auditor General to Barbara Hafer (her first statewide run).

Bailey ran for the Auditor General position again in 1992, and lost the Democratic primary. He also lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary to Ivan Itkin in 1998.

.. deliberately ignored international drug smuggling ...

on the spur of the moment, but this really pissed me off.

To the Editor,
Your "special report", if I may use the term loosely, on Murtha's War Hero Status, was truly disgusting
and not even very creative. This swiftboating has already been done. Why don't you spend some time investigating the crimes and the betrayal of trust that has been committed under this administration? That should keep you busy for quite a while.
Leave Murtha alone. If you were even remotely creative, you should be able to find plenty of well-deserving victims, and it would take a lot less digging to swiftboat them. In fact, you wouldn't even have to lie to do it.
Sincerely,

Grrrrr.....I really can't stand much more of the nitwit and those that support him.

...call into question the record of EVERY decorated war veteran. So the next time the right wing brings out some "decorated veteran" to speak for them -- which they do often -- call them on it: Hey, wait a minute, being a decorated veteran doesn't seem to mean that much anymore, at least according to Republicans, since they apparently think the military is not competent to make these determinations.

If the records of *our* decorated veterans must be defended, then the records of *all* decorated veterans must be defended, before they can trot out their credentials. Tit for tat, it's only fair.

McCain isn't one of them. The scumbags looked around the room, noted that none of them served and that none of them wasted time defending the country, and said....why not go after war records, since none of our guys have one? McClelland, Kerry, Murtha..those guys have something to lose if we degrade military service and cast doubt on every vet. Cheney, Bush, would love to see everyone dragged down to their level of being poseurs and pretenders.

Disgusting.

I fucking guarantee he will. He no doubt saw what happened to JOHN KERRY when he ran into the same situation.

These people are not only vile, but now they can't even come up with any new material. They are just recycling the Purple Hart shit they pulled with Kerry. It seems like these groups are saying they believe the Purple Heart as something bad. What the hell does this say to the heroes in this country who have received Purple Hearts? It certainly doesn't show any honor or respect, that's for sure.

And these same people are the ones who claim that they "support the troops"???