Confronting country club Napoleons

[dogday]

Instead of running for majority leader if Democrats take control of the House in 2006, maybe Rep. John P. Murtha ought to run for president. He may be 74, but the man knows how to handle himself in a fight, a skill too many genteel Democrats appear to have forgotten.

Here's the story: After narrowly escaping indictment last week (the new Republican ethical gold standard), White House apparatchik Karl Rove hustled to New Hampshire for a GOP fund-raiser. There he engaged in the kind of cheap smear for which he's justly infamous.

Of Democrats like Murtha, who voted to confront Iraq, but have become war critics, Rove said: "Too many Democrats, it strikes me they are ready to give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough and when it gets difficult, they fall back on that party's old pattern of cutting and running. They may be with you at the first shots, but they are not going to be there for the last tough battles."

Let's pass over the fact that when Bush presented the Iraq resolution, he vowed that war was the last thing he wanted. Most people knew better. When Tim Russert played the videotape of Rove for Murtha on "Meet the Press," the crusty old Marine reacted angrily.

http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com/articles/2006/06/28/news/opinion/editorial03.txt