It is hard to feel any sorrow for a man who was very much disliked by many. Murtha at times was a disgusting human being. He went on the record saying that our military men and women were murderers. How can anyone feel any pity or sorrow for this mans death. I don’t and here are a few reasons why;
* Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.), Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) and James Moran (D-Va.), have been linked to the scandal surrounding the now defunct PMA Group, a once-powerful lobbying firm at the center of a Justice Department criminal probe.
* A Democratic congressional candidate in Florida returned a campaign check from House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha’s PAC, offering further evidence that Democrats in competitive races are worried about being linked to Murtha, who has come under intense scrutiny for his earmarking practices
* A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) cannot be sued for defamation or slander stemming from comments he made regarding the death of Iraqi civilians in Haditha in November 2005.
A Marine involved in that incident, Sgt. Frank Wuterich, sued Murtha for libel and defamation after the lawmaker said the civilian deaths were “cold-blooded murder and war crimes” in several public appearances.
* Over the course of the past decade, Rep. John P. Murtha has earmarked millions of dollars for the Electro-Optics Center at Penn State University — money that has, in turn, gone to clients of the PMA Group, the Murtha-linked lobbying shop that was raided in November as part of a federal criminal probe.
* Murtha’s racist/redneck comments. Note to members of Congress: It’s never a good idea to demean your constituents as racists. But that’s precisely what longtime Pennsylvania Democrat John P. Murtha did in explaining why Barack Obama was struggling in his rural, blue-collar southwestern Pennsylvania district. Murtha later dug himself in a deeper hole in trying to defend himself by saying that most of the area used to be really redneck.
Murtha, who isn’t a household name outside Pennsylvania or Washington, saw himself parodied on “Saturday Night Live” less than two weeks before the election — hardly the kind of publicity he wanted. He now faces a tougher-than-expected challenge in a year when very few Democrats are at risk.
Just to make his point, Murtha will do or say anything to put this war in a bad light. Here is a MSNBC snipett:
* Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that “there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.”
So no, I don’t morn the passing of this grumpy old man.