Rep. Murtha: A "Michael Moore" democrat

Preznit's slip shows a little more. He's still obsessed with Michael Moore.

President Bush, in South Korea, continued on Friday to be questioned by reporters about the debate over Iraq. His press secretary issued an unusually blistering statement responding to Mr. Murtha's call for a pullout, declaring that the Democrat was "endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

Don't know about you, but I'd have to call that shriiiiiilllll.

Especially when it is said about this guy.

To understand Murtha, you have to understand that he knows firsthand that the Marine Corps is run not by the generals with their drivers and the stars on their shoulders, but by the sergeants. He refuses to settle for PowerPoint briefings from the military and civilian brass. He talks personally and directly to the enlisted personnel and the junior officers whose lives and limbs are on the line. His barely controlled rage over the shortage of bullet-stopping Kevlar vests for the U.S. military in Iraq brought prompt action from the Pentagon.

George W. Bush may want to run for re-election as "the war president," but Washington, D.C., in 2004 is anything but "a war capital." Contrary to the highest American traditions, this war demands from the nation's leadership no equality of sacrifice. The message to those most advantaged and most privileged from this president is clear: "In this war, you will pay no price, you will bear no burden."

Almost alone among Washington officials, Jack Murtha regularly visits Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital, to comfort and encourage the wounded and crippled veterans and their families. He can tell you, because he knows and he goes to their funerals, that already six residents of his working class Pennsylvania district have been killed in Iraq.

As the ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Murtha is openly furious at the Bush administration's dishonesty in failing to ask Congress to appropriate even the first dime of the millions that must be spent for 30,000 more troops, for the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan -- a budget Murtha brands $60 billion to $70 billion short of what the administration knows it will have to spend this year.

Prospects for the emergence of a stable, peaceful, self-governing Iraq? According to Murtha, "No better than 50-50."

You will not see Jack Murtha on the cable news talk show circuit. On Capitol Hill, he is rightly known as a workhorse, not a show horse. When Jack Murtha speaks, those who care about the men and women of the U.S. military and their mission have learned to pay attention.

That was written back in March 2004. Since then, seven more of Murtha's constituents have died in the conflict. And given Murtha's reputation, Bush's shockingly shrill response (normally such an obviously personal, angry, and fearful reactions -- the appearance of a cornered rodent -- are left to "anonymous staffers."

And when you've lost Howie Kurtz, you've lost the nation.