Thread: Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, dies at 77

Feb 08, 2010

Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, dies at the age of 77

02:50 PM
Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the House subcommittee on defense, has died at the age of 77, his family reports.

Update at 2:54 p.m. ET: The Vietnam veteran, a longtime hawk, was a key player on defense legislation and created a political stir during the Bush administration by coming out against the Iraq war.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... ge-of-77/1

Rep. John Murtha dead at 77

Posted 7m ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A spokesman says Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a retired Marine Corps officer who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, has died. He was 77.
He had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery.

PHOTOS: John Murtha through the years

In 1974, Murtha became the first combat veteran of the Vietnam War elected to Congress. He wielded considerable clout for two decades as a leader of the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending. But frustration over the Iraq war led him to call for an immediate pullout of U.S. troops in 2005.

Murtha's congressional career was clouded by questions about his ethics — from the Abscam corruption probe in 1980 to more recent investigations into the special-interest spending known as earmarks and the raising of cash for election campaigns.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... obit_N.htm

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

Rep. John Murtha, Iraq war critic, dies at 77
Feb 8 02:55 PM US/Eastern
By PETER JACKSON
Associated Press Writer

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - U.S. Rep. John Murtha, an influential critic of the Iraq War whose congressional career was shadowed by questions about his ethics, died Monday. He was 77.

The Pennsylvania Democrat had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., spokesman Matthew Mazonkey said.

In 1974 Murtha, then an officer in the Marine Reserves, became the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress. One of Congress' most hawkish Democrats, he wielded considerable clout for two decades as the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending.

Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, but Murtha's growing frustration over the administration's handling of the war prompted him in November 2005 to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," he said.

Murtha's opposition to the Iraq war rattled Washington, where the tall, gruff-mannered congressman enjoyed bipartisan respect for his work on military issues. On Capitol Hill, Murtha was seen as speaking for those in uniform when it came to military matters.

Born June 17, 1932, John Patrick Murtha delivered newspapers and worked at a gas station before graduating from Ramsay High School in Mount Pleasant.

Military service was in Murtha's blood. He said his great-grandfather served in the Civil War, his father and three uncles in World War II, and his brothers in the Marine Corps.

He left Washington and Jefferson College in 1952 to join the Marines, where he rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island, S.C., and later served in the 2nd Marine Division.

Murtha moved back to Johnstown and remained with the Marine Reserves until he volunteered to go to Vietnam. He served as an intelligence officer there from 1966 to 1967 and received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

After his discharge from the Marines, Murtha ran a small business in Johnstown. He went to the University of Pittsburgh on the GI Bill of rights, graduating in 1962 with a degree in economics.

He served in the Pennsylvania House in Harrisburg from 1969 until he was elected to Congress in a special election in 1974. In 1990, he retired from the Marine Reserves as a colonel.

"Ever since I was a young boy, I had two goals in life—I wanted to be a colonel in the Marine Corps and a member of Congress," Murtha wrote in his 2004 book, "From Vietnam to 9/11."

Murtha's criticism of the Iraq war intensified in 2006, when he accused Marines of murdering Iraqi civilians "in cold blood" at Haditha, Iraq, after one Marine died and two were wounded by a roadside bomb.

Critics said Murtha unfairly held the Marines responsible before an investigation was concluded and fueled enemy retaliation. He said the war couldn't be won militarily and such incidents dimmed the prospect for a political solution.

"This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people," Murtha said. "And we're set back every time something like this happens."

In 2008, the Republican Party used Murtha's words against him in TV ads aired less than a month before the election. The ads cited his criticism of the Haditha incident as well as his comment about "racist" voting tendencies of many western Pennsylvania residents. Still, Murtha handily won his 18th full term.

Murtha was a perennial target of critics of so-called pay-to-play politics. He routinely drew the attention of ethical watchdogs with off-the-floor activities from his entanglement in the Abscam corruption probe three decades ago to the more recent scrutiny of the connection between special-interest spending known as earmarks and the raising of cash for campaigns.

Murtha defended the practice of earmarking. The money, he said, benefited his constituents.

Murtha became chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in 1989. The same year Paul Magliocchetti, a former subcommittee staffer, left Capitol Hill to found the now-defunct PMA Group. The lobbying firm, which specialized in obtaining earmarks for defense contractors, was one Murtha's biggest sources of campaign cash.

In 2007 and 2008, Murtha and two fellow Democrats on the subcommittee directed $137 million to defense contractors who were paying PMA to get them government business. Between 1989 and 2009, Murtha collected more than $2.3 million in campaign contributions from PMA's lobbyists and corporate clients, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political money.

Shortly after the 2008 election, the FBI raided PMA's offices as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. In a separate development in January 2009, FBI agents raided the offices of a defense contractor from Murtha's district—Windber-based Kuchera Defense Systems Inc.—that had received millions of dollars in earmarks sponsored by Murtha while contributing tens of thousands to his campaigns.

A year later, Kuchera was suspended from bidding on government contracts because of allegations that it paid more than $200,000 in kickbacks to another defense contractor.

Around the same time, the House ethics committee was investigating the link between PMA-related campaign contributions and earmarks, but it had not named a subcommittee to look into possible violations by individual lawmakers.

Murtha's critics recall the Abscam corruption probe, in which the FBI caught him on videotape in a 1980 sting operation turning down a $50,000 bribe offer while holding out the possibility that he might take money in the future.

"We do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested and maybe I won't," Murtha said on the tape.

Six congressmen and one senator were convicted in that case. Murtha was not charged, but the government named him as an unindicted co-conspirator and he testified against two other congressmen.

Murtha's district encompasses all or parts of nine counties in southwestern Pennsylvania and embodies the region's stereotypes of coal mines, steel mills and blue-collar values.

Constituents credited Murtha with bringing jobs and health care to the region, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars for local industry, hospitals and tourism. Critics derisively nicknamed Murtha the "king of pork" and said he used his position on the defense subcommittee to win favors.

Murtha often delivered Democratic votes to Republican leaders in exchange for the funding of pet projects. He wasn't shy about such deals, once saying that "dealmaking is what Congress is all about."

In 2006, when the Democrats captured control of the House for the first time in 12 years, Rep. Nancy Pelosi endorsed Murtha to become majority leader. Pelosi, D-Calif., went on to be elected as the first female House speaker, but caucus members picked Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., as their leader.

RIP John Murtha
RIP Obamacare. Remember that health care reform passed in the House wy 2 votes 219 - 215. The lone Republican who voted for it, has changed his tune and will vote against. With Murtha passing away, Pelosi doesn't have enough votes to pass the Senate bill.

Good riddance to one of the most corrupt politicians in PA, if not the country.

Veteran congressman's death adds to Barack Obama's woes

• Democrats fear Republicans will win seat held since 1974
• President's poll ratings fall further amid health care impasse

The Democratic party faces another election test after the death yesterday of John Murtha, a congressman dubbed by his colleagues the "king of pork".

Murtha, aged 77, had been in the House of Representatives since being elected to his Pennsylvania district in 1974.

The fear in the party is that Republicans will notch up another victory when a special election is held, probably May.

The Democrats have been panicking since losing Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat to the Republicans last month.

Murtha's nickname referred to so-called pork barrel politics – bringing government spending to bear in a representative's own district.

His death came on a day that saw Barack Obama's poll ratings fall further. A Marist poll found that only 44% of voters surveyed approved of his job performance, down 2% on December. More alarming for Democratic strategists, 57% of independents disapprove of his performance.

Murtha's death will have a neglible impact on the arithmetic of the House, where the Democrats have an overwhelming majority, unlike in the Senate. But another defeat in the spring would add to the sense of panic among Democrats in the run-up to the Congressional mid-term elections in November.

Murtha's office said he had died in hospital after complications following gallbladder surgery. He had been in hospital for several months.

His election in 1974 marked him out as the first of those to have served in Vietnam to make it into Congress.

He was popular on the left as one of the first senior Democrats in 2005 to turn against the Iraq war. But he was also one of the leading exponents of 'pork-barrel' politics, a practice that has long been reviled outside Washington and is one of the reasons for the present levels of disenchantment.

Murtha, as chairman of the House defence appropriations sub-committee, added 'earmarks', special spending projects to help his district, to defence bills, hence the King of Pork.

Scandal hovered over him throughout much of his career.

Murtha faced a tough race for re-election in 2008 after sabotaging his own campaign by referring to some of voters in Pennsylvania as "racist".

One of the reasons for the turnaround in Democratic fortunes is opposition to Barack Obama's health reform plan.

The president will make a fresh push this month to get his troubled health reform package through Congress by meeting both Democrats and Republicans, hoping to find common ground.

The half-day discussion at Blair House, opposite the White House, will be broadcast live on television to counter public criticism that too many deals in Washington are made behind closed doors.

Obama announced the meeting during a CBS television interview on Sunday evening. "I want to consult closely with our Republican colleagues … to ask them to put their ideas on the table. I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward," he said.

The Republican leader in the House of Representatives, John Boehner, welcomed the move as "a real, bipartisan conversation", but added: "The problem with the Democrats' healthcare bills is not that the American people don't understand them; the American people do understand them and they don't like them."

The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, welcomed the meeting, but suggested he was unlikely to compromise, calling for the Democrats' bill to be shelved.

The move buys the Democrats a few more weeks while they debate among themselves whether to push forward with the bill or abandon it. The version of the bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve would extend health care to 30 million more Americans.

www.guardian.co.uk