You have no idea how hard it is for me to call ex-Marine John Murtha that. I respect anyone who has served...at least until the point that they take off the uniform and demean our troops like Rep. Murtha and Sen. John Kerry did.

John Murtha said shortly after several Marines were charged with murder in Haditha Iraq that they killed "in cold blood" when the hadn't even gone to trial. Most of the charges were dropped including the most serious charges and the Marines have effectively been cleared. So why hasn't Murtha apologized for his comments and why didn't the media question why a sitting congressman would first portray our troops as murderers than not apologize when it became clear they would not? That was a rhetorical question.

I guess if you can't get the old media to do the job, it falls to new media bloggers to ask the corrupt congressman the pertinent questions:

It seems that at that exact moment Murtha would like to have redeployed himself to Okinawa. Murtha loathes those who he once belonged to and he should be ashamed of himself. Unfortunately shame is not something Murtha knows anything about.

Congressman John Murtha is an absolute disgrace and he is exulted by the Democrats. He accused our troops of committing a vile act and when they are proven innocent, he runs away. Ladies and gents, enjoy your new Congress, the Most. Ethical. Congress, Ever.

The Hill is reporting that one of the leaders of the anti-war movement in the House, Democrat Rep. Jack Murtha, is claiming that Republicans will join him against the Iraq war -- next year.

House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) said Monday that he expects that Republican lawmakers will begin abandoning President Bush's Iraq policy after the GOP picks a presidential candidate next year. "As soon as the primaries are over, you'll see Republicans start jumping ship," Murtha said in remarks at the National Press Club.

Murtha also is predicting that Democrats will pick up 40 to 50 seats in the House next year. To put his predictions in context, might I remind readers that Murtha, one year ago, was predicting that by this time (September '07) we would have surrendered in Iraq and our troops would be "redeploying" to areas outside of Iraq where we could provide "quick response" strikes on terrorists -- from bases as close as Okinawa, Japan, 4899 miles away.

I believe that Murtha's predictions this year are also in error. Iraq will be in play next year, but will be more of a problem in the general electorate for Democrats than Republicans. And with Congressional approval lower with a Democratic Congress than it ever was with a Republican one, I don't think you'll be seeing any Democrat landslide in '08. What are the Dems going to do, run against themselves? (Oh wait, there's MoveOn.org...)

If (a big if) Republicans clean up their act and pledge fiscal conservatism under new leadership, I think that the Senate will remain in the Democrats' control, but the House might switch again. If Iraq is going particularly well, however, that might change - Republicans could win the Senate as well. All bets are off if the Republicans continue to act like idiots. I think that the House Republicans have, for the most part, learned their lessons. The Republicans in the Senate, as of yet, have not learned theirs (as evidenced by Larry Craig and Ted Stevens), and might not until after 2008.

The public has had it with this war. From "Mission Accomplished" to "Bring It On" through "Last Throes" to just 6, 12, 18 and back to 6 or maybe 12 months before we even begin to exit, the public, the rank-and-file military, many officers but especially the voters have had it. Even congressional Republicans have had it and are breaking with Bush. Here's a snippet about Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y.:

"Things have not changed substantially in Iraq," Walsh said after returning to Washington Monday. "It's a very, very dangerous place, if not the most dangerous place on Earth. Governance is a serious issue. They are stumbling toward democracy." [...] "What occurred to me while I was in Iraq is that it's time," Walsh said. "We've done enough. No country has done more than we have for Iraq. The question I kept coming up with is how much do we have to give Iraq to make things work? I think we have given enough."

We have given enough. If a Republican can tell the difference between killing more soldiers and bringing them home, then the Democrats should stand and say, "Enough." Just today on the radio I heard the Iraqi defense minister say his forces could handle 80% of the load right now.

Fine. Good Enough. Let them do it, it's the only way to get our guys out. Even if we started tomorrow it would take at least 12 months to do an organized withdrawal to the perimeter. More Republicans will break with Bush and we know he's just trying to run the clock out and hand this mess to anyone else. Meantime we lose more troops, meantime we lose more credibility, meantime it becomes a bigger mess. Thanks Mr. Walsh, you only won by 3,000 votes last time but you may have saved your seat with today's statement.

The Tank has several video clips of some of the more, er, interesting questions and answers from yesterday's hearing. I think I would have to be seriously medicated to go before congress, but General Petraeus did very well on the composure front.

A transcript is here at CNN, Hotline has a good summary. Certain Democrats will gnash their teeth, but Petraeus will get what he is asking for. The bottom line is that Petraeus put his reputation on the line back in February when he said that if he saw that the Iraq campaign was a waste of time, he would recommend a withdrawal.

Well, here we are with a six month later report and far from testifying that it's been a waste of time, he is reporting that he can send the extra troops home earlier than the surge plan called for. That's into the early part of 2008. Beyond that he won't make any commitments. Smart move considering what's been happening in Iraq.

Not many details as yet:

The aide said the body of the 68-year-old Republican was found by staff members who went to his apartment after he failed to show up for work. There was no immediate word on the cause of his death. Gillmor's office did not respond to a reporter's call.

Gillmor, who represented Ohio's 5th District in the Bowling Green area of the state, was first elected to Congress in 1988

Gillmor was a fairly staunch conservative on most issues. Amazingly, his Wikipedia page already has news of his death posted.

Gillmor served in the Judge Advocates corp in the Air Force and was a lawyer after he resigned his commission. He served on several top committees in the House.

It would seem that the new GOP strategy when it comes to party corruption centers on issuing a swift public condemnation of the guilty (or perceived guilty) individual followed by a swift ouster of the embattled colleague. Of course, this was the way it played it in regards to the action taken against Senator Larry Craig and to a great extent this swift action was a preventive measure to avoid the 2006 calamity.

According to the Politico, while the furor and outrage over the Mark Foley incident definitely played a role in members of the conservative base sitting home, there were other corruption scandals that contributed to massive GOP losses. In Ohio, Rep. Bob Ney's felony conviction greatly damaged the party as did the Rep. Duke Cunningham corruption scandal and criminal conviction in California. And who could forget the ouster of Tom Delay?

For the GOP, it is a smart move to take a zero tolerance policy towards party corruption. Unless the GOP remains proactive in this area and establishes that such behavior will not be tolerated and must stop, the party will be perpetually labeled the party of corruption and will suffer greatly because of it. Or, more accurately, it will continue to suffer greatly.

GOP jailbird Bob Ney was replaced last year in Congress by Democrat Zack Space, who'll have to defend his seat next November. It's still early but Space is criss-crossing Ohio at a furious pace, running like it's October '08 and the polls are split down the middle. Why? Because the Republican Party is already breathing down his neck. The GOP has tapped this as one of the most important races in the county and set Space's defeat as one of its top goals.

many voters said they were preparing for one of the longest and most brutal Congressional campaigns they have ever seen. "The national Republican Party is going to dump a whole lot of money into this district," said Lynn Elliott, 59, a Republican and a dairy farmer.

Both parties see Mr. Space's seat as an important prize. The 18th Congressional District, which Mr. Space represents, is Republican territory; President Bush received 57 percent of the vote here in 2004. Winning the seat is essential for Republicans to regain control of the House next year, said David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron.

The GOP have an uphill fight with this one, mainly because Space is pretty darn popular, his fundraising rates are strong and even Republicans are saying he's doing a good job. And secondly because there's no clear Republican contender yet.

It won't be until after the primaries that the congressional races come into focus but you can be sure that Ohio's 18th district will be one that both parties will be keeping a close eye on.

I'll bet that not many readers of this blog, nor many people nationwide, know that there is a movement afoot to create a Cabinet level "Department of Peace." I certainly did not realize that there were concrete plans for it. I only remember having heard Dennis Kucinich mutter about it in several interviews I've heard over the years. But today it's a real possibility, with real money and organization behind it. Believe it or not, there's currently a resolution in the Democratic-led House of Representatives aimed at establishing such a department.

If you're not involved in the movement, you probably have little chance of finding out about it, up until now. The plan is either intentionally or accidentally not being reported on in the media. Even if you look for it at the Library of Congress via THOMAS you can't find it under the reported resolution number, HR 808. I just found out about it when I visited the site of the political magazine City Journal. There's an article (The Peace Racket) posted on the site about this proposal and the ideology behind it, that should frighten any rational human being.

We need to make two points about this movement at the outset. First, it's opposed to every value that the West stands for-liberty, free markets, individualism-and it despises America, the supreme symbol and defender of those values. Second, we're talking not about a bunch of naive Quakers but about a movement of savvy, ambitious professionals that is already comfortably ensconced at the United Nations, in the European Union, and in many nongovernmental organizations.

Whenever dealing with movements like this (liberal or conservative), I try to connect the dots -- find out who is ultimately pulling the strings. As the anti-Vietnam War movement can be ultimately traced back to the Communists, so these new peace groups can be tracked back not to our friends, but our enemies. And why not? It's worked to our enemies' benefit in the past - might as well use the same formula again. To anyone who doubts this, I suggest they read Propaganda Redux by Ion Mihai Pacepa in the Wall Street Journal. The author helped run the Western anti-Vietnam War movement from Communist Romania before he defected. Then Google his name -- he's written quite a bit on his previous exploits, not that you'd find any of it published in the New York Times.

I get very nervous about resolutions creating new Cabinet positions, with more than 60 co-sponsors, that don't get media attention. You should as well.

The Republicans could do worse than make Rep. Jack Murtha the poster boy of what they're trying to defeat in 2008. Over the past few days, Bob Novak has used his sources on Capitol Hill to give us a look at who House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls on when things get a bit touchy with the ethics and earmarks subject on the House floor -- good old Jack Murtha. He's apparently now referred to openly by his nickname: "King Corruption":

Republicans returning to the House floor on Friday morning Aug. 3 after their walkout the night before were surprised to find as presiding officer the Democrat they call "King Corruption": Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, master of earmarks and backroom deals.

...Murtha's performance as non-partisan presiding officer ran true to form. On a voice vote, Murtha ruled for Democrats when obviously more Republicans were on the House floor. He subsequently ordered a roll call vote, though members rising in support clearly fell short of the 44 required. After that ruling was challenged, Murtha declared: "The chair's decision is not subject to question."

Nice guy. And one ripe for defeat. Now we fast forward to this morning's Novak column in the Washington Post, House of Corruption?, for an update on the fight against secret earmarks attached to unrelated appropriations bills in the House. Incidentally, this is an embarrassment for both parties, not just Democrats.

After speculating whether this was 1968 all over again for the Democrats, I think we now have exhibit A. Cindy Sheehan has formally announced as an independent gunning for Nancy Pelosi's seat.

From AP:

Citing her son as inspiration, a tearful Cindy Sheehan announced her candidacy Thursday for the U.S. House of Representatives.

...Last month, she announced her intention to run against Pelosi if the speaker didn't move to impeach Bush by July 23. On Thursday, she said Pelosi had "protected the status quo" of the corporate elite and had lost touch with people in her district, most of whom, she said, want American troops out of Iraq.

...Sheehan admitted she has no funds for a campaign, but planned to immediately get started raising money. Without giving further specifics, Sheehan said she wouldn't accept money from corporations and would run on a platform of universal health care. Sheehan said she also wants to make college affordable and improve ethics in the legislative and executive branches.

So maybe now the Democrats will actually believe the conservatives and others who suggested that Cindy Sheehan is an unhinged woman trading on the goodwill of her dead son. Just who was it that fed the media reputation, who booked her on all those talk shows? Who funded her camp in Crawford? Talk about pigeons coming home to roost.

From the day that the New York Times illegally revealed the NSA Warrantless Surveillance Program in December of 2005, practically all Democrats in Congress have been screaming about it. The program supposedly "proved" that Bush was violating the Constitution at will, illegally spying on Americans. In fact, the Dems used it as part of their 2006 election platform, and to this day Democrat Presidential candidates use the subject in campaign speeches.

That'll have to change now that the Democrats have not only written Bush's NSA Warrantless Surveillance into law, but expanded it. From today's New York Times:

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States. They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

From the rhetoric of the Democrats, you would think that the entire FISA program (which the warrantless surveillance falls under) was an evil Republican invention. Not so.

AP via Yahoo News:

The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature.

Late Saturday, Bush said, "The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, has assured me that this bill gives him what he needs to continue to protect the country, and therefore I will sign this legislation as soon as it gets to my desk.

Nothing focuses the mind of congress critters like the possibility of a terrorist attack when this bill is undone.

The Corner is reporting that a bill will be voted on in the House tomorrow. This bill will provide full federal funding for a replacement bridge up to $250 million dollars.

So anyone want to guess the chances of this bill not happening? The bill was submitted by Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-Minnesota, Duh). Timing is everything if he gets it through. I suggest he take the money from Ted Stevens' Bridge-to-nowhere which would have cost twice as much and yet served less people than were actually injured or killed in the Minneapolis collapse.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (a Republican) has ordered all Minnesota bridges of the same design to be immediately inspected, which seems reasonable. And federal officials asked other states to do the same.

Representative Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), once the leading Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, has been under a federal corruption investigation for well over a year. The case concerns allegations that he has illegally used his office to profit handsomely to the tune of several million dollars using non-profits as front groups. His problem created such a big stir last year, when the Democrats were in the middle of successfully waging the "Culture of Corruption" campaign against the Republicans, that he was forced to step down from his ethics post by fellow Democrats.

When the Democrats won the House this year, Mollohan was given the chairmanship of the Justice and Science Sub-Committee of the House Appropriations Committee. That created a situation where the good representative would ironically be in charge of funding the agencies that are investigating him, the Justice Department and the FBI. A leftist Soros funded group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), knowing the damage that could be done to the Democrats by this, freaked.

On November 30, 2006, CREW called for Reps. Mollohan, Lewis and Doolittle to recuse themselves from participating in the consideration of appropriations to the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

There was an article posted on CQ.com Thursday that I think was meant to mock Republicans, but might be thought of as suggesting a great way forward for both the House and the Senate:

Much of the rest of America might have been sneaking peeks on a workaday afternoon at the new 759-page Harry Potter best seller, but House Ways and Means Committee Republicans settled into their own long read after lunch on Thursday when they forced a delay of the markup of the Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act by exercising their right to have the 481-page bill read out loud

One of the biggest complaints I have about Congress is that most of the time they have no idea what they are voting on. Senators and Representatives don't write these bills -- their aides do. Most of the time, when questioned, individual Congressional members admit that they haven't read the bills being voted on. Add to that non-transparent earmarks and pork spending, and it's easy to see why the legislative process, more often than not, is a disaster either in process or waiting to happen.

This move by the Republicans was obviously a political tactic designed to buy more time to review the bill. But it's actually not a bad idea to do it all the time. If this type of public reading was mandatory for every bill that gets voted on, along with their amendments and all clearly defined final earmark attachments, perhaps it would limit the thousand page spending behemoths that get passed literally minutes after being introduced on the floor. Pardon my libertarianism, but less bills passed means less government in our lives.

When more bloggers regularly read bills than do the elected representatives that actually vote on them, we've got a serious problem.