murtha's brother

* i was doing some research into the duke and i came across this from june 05: "The latest involve GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California and Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania.
The LA Times reported over the weekend that Murtha's brother lobbied for ten defense firms which benefited from the appropriations bill Murtha helped write as the ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations subcomittee."

i cant see the LAT story cos its in their archives - but isnt that the funniest thing you've ever heard?

i missed this story when it came out (i'd never heard of murtha till his 'get out' speech) - and i'll try to look into it later - but lets assume for a minute that the substance of that claim is true. now consider this - when they swiftboated murtha, none of this story about his brother was even whispered! isnt that interesting?

let's remember the swiftboating hierarchy of meaning:
1. smear with facts if you can
2. smear by pointing to allegations
3. straight-out make shit up

and yet, when they came to smearing murtha, they called him a coward, literally, in congress, and ann coulter tried casting aspersions about whether his medals were legitimate, but they never once dared mention the apparent fact that Murtha's brother was lobbying for 10 defense firms - firms which were on the receiving end of committee largesse. surely the swiftboaters could have called him a traitor for selling america out, in a war no less, to the highest bidder, and nepotism! DEMOCRATS. SOFT ON DEFENSE. they could have claimed. BENEDICT ARNOLD they could have screamed. and MICHAEL MOORE.

... but they didnt scream any of that. lobbyists buying off senators is mostly the preserve of republicans - so this is one little secret they thought they'd let slip by. isnt that fascinating?

can you imagine the teethnashing at swiftboat-central - they had the perfect material, but they couldnt dare use it! so instead, they put a coupla grand in crazy jeanne schmitt's campaign, fabricated quotes, embarassed the hell out of her, were forced into an official retraction - think about it, these people are known for carving people up with a scalpel, but they decided that the schmitt idea was a much better idea than shaming murtha for the apparent fact that he whored out the military in order to fill his brother's pockets. in a time of war. remember also that the repug talking point du jour is that 'democrats are corrupt too' - but they darent mention murtha's lobbyist brother lest it shine a spotlight on their own behaviour.

brilliant.