Murtha (Again) and Other Stuff

Did They Watch the Same Show? Dept.: Today’s lead item on memeorandum is Congressman Jack Murtha’s appearance yesterday on Meet the Press. Here’s Rachel Sklar at The Huffington Post:

So - I'm going to devote my time to Murtha. Did I mention that he DOMINATED? This was as effective a performance on Meet The Press as I've seen, and demonstrated not only that Murtha is right but that he's good. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it expertly. Right off the bat he took the offensive, hammering away at Republican talking points and emphasizing and re-emphasizing his own.

…

It's obviously working - otherwise why else would Karl Rove be on the attack? Calling out Murtha and saying "If Murtha had his way, American troops would've been gone by the end of April and we wouldn't have gotten Zarqawi" and challenging Murtha's suggestion of redeployment outside Iraq - clearly Murtha has hit a nerve. And when he answers, he knows what he's talking about: neither Rove nor Russert are able to score a point, because Murtha knows what he's talking about and isn't trying to fool anyone.

And here’s an excerpt from the Gateway Pundit. The numbers in parens following Murtha’s verbatim comments are items GP feels Murtha could have/should have been challenged on. Immediately below Murtha’s comments are the enumerated challenges; there are 15 in all.

REP. MURTHA: Well, “stay the course” is “stay and pay.” This is the thing that has worried me right along. We’re spending $8 billion dollars a month,(1) $300 million dollars a day. And to give you some perspective of what that means, Gates said, “I’m going to quit the corporation, or I’m going to—less time with the corporation.” Well, you weigh $30 billion dollars. That’s four months of the cost of this war.(2) This port security, if you want to spend more money, it’d would take 47 years the way we’re spending it. Education, the No Child Left Behind,(3) a couple months of the war would pay for that. Whose going to, whose going to pay for this down the road? Our children and grandchildren are paying for this war.(4) And then you have the, the, the emotional strain, the, the, the people who are being hurt.(5)

…

1.) $8 billion dollars a month- Murtha said the war cost $9 billion a month last week, $6 billion a month in December... Now it's $8 billion? Which is it?

2.) ...$30 billion dollars. That’s four months of the cost of this war. (see #1)

3.) No Child Left Behind- Murtha says that he "will restore education funding". The US has increased spending on elementary and secondary education by 41 percent despite the War on Terror!

4.) Children and grandchildren are paying for this war. They are going to pay for the cost of 9-11 too- $639.3 billion - and some 2 million lost jobs.

5.) The people who are being hurt in the war. - There were 2,752 lost on one afternoon on 9-11. There have been 2,503 heroes lost in over three years in Iraq (June 18, 2006).

The whole Gateway Pundit article bears reading. I didn’t watch MTP yesterday, or any of the other Sunday Talking Head shows either, for that matter. I did, however, scan the MTP transcript (mislabeled as “June 11”). There’s really nothing new here, Murtha is saying the same things he’s been saying for the past four or five months, and saying them badly: “we’re losing,” “the war was wrong to begin with,” “redeploy.” In other words, it’s the same ol’ same ol’ Democratic Talking Points, revisited. Notably absent: a viable alternative plan. Redeploy to, say, Okinawa? Froggy, writing at Blackfive, simply invites us to look at the frickin’ map. Yeah, that’ll work! Jeff Goldstein has more…

Here’s an item I meant to blog about this past week but sadly forgot. You may have missed it as it certainly didn’t get much press, but on Thursday President Bush announced the designation of a vast chain of Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as a national monument, now the largest marine sanctuary in the world. The whole story, from the transcript of a PBS News Hour interview with two leading environmentalists, is here.

JEFFREY BROWN: It's notable that environmental groups have not often seen eye-to-eye with this president. Today, you did. Today was an exception.

JOSHUA REICHERT: That's true. Today, we put aside these differences and we come together to celebrate what is really a remarkable accomplishment. From both a national and international perspective, this is a landmark conservation event.

A “landmark conservation event.” So much for raping and pillaging Mother Gaia. What the Environmentalists-as-Religion crowd seem to miss is the fact conservatives respect and preserve our environment, and we do so in a sensible and balanced manner. Thursday’s action by the President reinforces that fact. Not that you would notice, eh?

Someone is gonna raise The Stanley Cup tonight. The greatest spectacle in sports begins at 8:00 p.m. (Eastern) on NBC. If you’ve never watched a hockey game this is the one to watch. I guarantee you it doesn’t get any better than this.

The Summer Solstice is still two days away and we’re roasting here on The High Plains. Still. With no relief in sight. What the HELL will summer be like if Spring is this frickin’ hot? Maybe Algore is right, after all. You know I’m kidding about Algore…