A BuzzFlash Guest Contribution

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Chickens, Hawks and a Turkey Called Iraq

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Michael Winship

Remember Senior Wences? The Spanish ventriloquist was 103 when he died. The vaudevillian lived in the Ameritania Hotel, a couple of blocks from my old apartment in midtown Manhattan. I used to see him walking along West 54th Street.

Wences was a regular on the Ed Sullivan TV show, famous for his talking hand, named Johnny, and a running gag he did with a disembodied dummy's head he kept in a box. "All right?" Senor Wences would ask. "S'all right!" the head would reply and the ventriloquist would slam the door on the box. Hilarity ensued.

You had to be there.

One of Senor Wences' other bits was with a chicken puppet named Cecelia. "Which come first," he would ask the bird. "Cheeken or egg?"

"Cheeken," replied Cecelia.

"You sure?" said Senior Wences.

With grave authority, Cecelia answered, "I know my beezness."

Which is why the White House and the Republican Congress are so upset about Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania. It's not just that he's antiwar. He knows his business.

As has been widely reported, the congressman and former Marine drill instructor, who hails from the part of southwestern Pennsylvania made famous in the movie "The Deer Hunter," served gallantly in Vietnam, receiving the Bronze Star with a Combat "V," two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. Usually, he's described as a "fierce hawk" who supported the invasions of Grenada and Panama, the first Gulf War and, until recently, the war in Iraq.

So last week, when the Democratic, 31-year veteran of the House spoke out in favor of immediately removing our troops from Iraq, the attack dogs pounced, just as they had been unleashed against military vets John McCain in 2000, Max Cleland in 2002 and John Kerry in 2004.

In an official statement, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "It is baffling that [Murtha] is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party." House Speaker Denny Hastert announced, "Murtha and Democratic leaders... would prefer that the United States surrender to the terrorists who would harm innocent Americans." Republican Rep. John Carter of Texas said people like Murtha wanted to take "the cowardly way out and say, 'We're going to surrender.'"

But the piece de resistance came during Friday night's ferocious debate in the House, when freshman Ohio Congresswoman Jean Schmidt announced, "A few minutes ago, I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp, Ohio representative from the 88th district in the [Ohio] 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."

Who, by the way, is Colonel Danny Bubp? Thanks to reporting by journalist Max Blumenthal, a research fellow with the progressive website Media Matters for America, we've learned that he's not just an irate Marine reservist and state legislator but an activist who has worked for various Christian right causes and who campaigned vigorously for Jean Schmidt's election. Earlier this month, both he and Schmidt received the "Ten Commandments Leadership Award" from Rev. Rob Schenck, former head of the militant, anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

The fury triggered by Schmidt's remarks forced her to remove the statement from the record and the Republican attempts to smear Murtha began to backfire. A public worn out by war and negative campaigning was fed up. By weekend's sunset they had let politicians and pollsters know it.

It was as though the attack dogs had run out of leash and been yanked short. By Monday, although they continued to maintain he was wrong, both President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld had described Murtha as "a fine man," and Vice President Cheney was calling him "a good man, a Marine, a patriot," who was "taking a clear stand in an entirely legitimate discussion."

Last year, Vice President Cheney, recalling the years when he was Secretary of Defense, called Murtha "one of my strongest allies in Congress." Murtha is ranking member and former chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He has been especially successful bringing defense work to his district, from which jobs in the steel mills and coalmines have vanished.

In fact, it was the depth of his involvement in military spending that apparently triggered one aspect of the Republican effort to undermine Murtha's credibility: the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported Friday that House Republicans were saying Murtha's links to KSA Consulting, a lobbying firm that employs his brother Kit, "may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee." This goes back to a Los Angeles Times investigative report last June noting that clients of KSA received $20.8 million in contracts from the $417 billion Pentagon spending bill in 2004, a bill Rep. Murtha shepherded through his subcommittee.

Which brings me to this: what has gone largely overlooked in all the hubbub is that Murtha's own military experience and his years of meeting with enlisted servicemen and women, overseeing defense contracts and building extensive Pentagon and industry contacts at every level mean that in expressing his opposition he's not just speaking for himself but for them. "They're the reason he's doing it," a Washington lobbyist and former Democratic congressional aide told "First Read," a daily memo prepared by NBC News' political unit. "These are the colonels in uniform trying to communicate how bad it is."

Another added, "When he speaks, people in that community know he speaks for many in the senior leadership of the military."

Or, in the words of even a conservative like Rod Dreher at National Review Online, "Murtha... is not a Pelosi-style Chardonnay Democrat; he's a crusty retired career Marine who reminds me of the kind of beer-slugging Democrats we used to have before the cultural left took over the party... From where I sit, conservatives would be fools not to take this man seriously."

Last Thursday, Rep. Murtha said, "Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have become a catalyst for violence. U.S. troops are the common enemy of the Sunnis, Saddamists and foreign jihadists. I believe with a U.S. troop redeployment, the Iraqi security forces will be incentivized to take control...

"Because we in Congress are charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle, it is our responsibility, our obligation to speak out for them. That's why I am speaking out. Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home."

The hawk turned dove says we've got a turkey on our hands.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Michael Winship, Writers Guild of America Award winner and former writer with Bill Moyers, writes this weekly column for the Messenger Post Newspapers in upstate New York. Copyright 2005 Messenger Post Newspapers.