Something’s in the Pork

John Murtha just won his election in PA. It’s strange how incumbents in a Congress with a historically-low approval rating manage to do so well.

It might be due to the fact that Murtha brings home enough pork to earn him Citizens Against Government Waste’s Porker of the Year in 2007. He won overwhelmingly, as the second-place candidate only received about 10% of the vote. Because it sure couldn’t have helped him when he said the Marines “killed innocent civilians in cold blood” a week before he heard the evidence. The Haditha massacre turned out to be a hoax: All but 1 of the Marines have been exonerated.

Murtha claimed that “When I spoke up about Haditha, my intention was to draw attention to the horrendous pressure put on our troops in Iraq and to the cover-up of the incident.” Right. The best way to focus attention on the stresses on our combat troops is to call them cold-blooded murderers.

Being a fair man, I could give Murtha the benefit of the doubt if he went back and apologized after the truth was discovered, but that’s not going to happen. In fact one of the Marines is bringing a lawsuit against Murtha for slander.

More recently, Murtha called his constituents “racists.” When he clarified his remarks, he then called them “rednecks.” I may be a firefighter and not a politician, but I would argue that wasn’t such a good move. However, despite all of this, and the fact that he is representing a district that voted for Bush twice, he will serve his 18th term in Washington.

There must really be something in the pork.