Jean Schmidt-Piece O’ Work Watch, Installment #1.
Jean Schmidt’s excuse for disparaging Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) as a coward on the House floor is apparently that she didn’t know he was a Marine.
I’m not sure I knew that Murtha was a Marine. In fact, though I certainly knew who Murtha is, I’m not sure I’d ever given it a lot of thought. But since Washington had been plastered with a day or so’s worth of wall-to-wall coverage which mainly boiled down to “Murtha, Marine, Wants out of Iraq” she’s obviously a pretty big fibber or a pretty big fool.
Actually, scratch that — probably both since she was probably fibbing but still also a fool for coming up with such a moronic excuse.
Add to this the fact that the night before Schmidt had a starring role in the official House GOP game of Whack-a-Murtha, the trancript of which is here. So Schmidt is dug in so deep on this one her head is barely peering up over the ground.
But there’s more, as you know doubt knew there would be.
According to tomorrow’s Times …
a spokeswoman for the colonel, Danny R. Bubp, said Ms. Schmidt had misconstrued their conversation.
While Mr. Bubp, a Republican member of the Ohio House of Representatives, opposes a quick withdrawal for forces, “he did not mention Congressman Murtha by name nor did he mean to disparage Congressman Murtha,” said Karen Tabor, his spokeswoman. “He feels as though the words that Congresswoman Schmidt chose did not represent their conversation.”
Now, as the old saw goes, no honor among ‘wingnuts (okay, so I’m paraphrasing). And as Max Blumenthal shows in this piece, Bubp’s quite a piece of work himself. So he’s probably full of it too. Still, even if he’s full of it, it’s sort of nice to see him selling her out.
And just to finish off, here’s the last graf of that Times piece …
Asked to respond on Monday, the congresswoman’s office said only, “Mrs. Schmidt’s statement was never meant to disparage Congressman Murtha.”
Here’s what she said …
Yesterday I stood at Arlington National Cemetery attending the funeral of a young marine in my district. He believed in what we were doing is the right thing and had the courage to lay his life on the line to do it. A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp, Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do. Danny and the rest of America and the world want the assurance from this body â that we will see this through.
Do her constituents really want to keep her in the job?
