Saint Jack the Dovish?
The canonization of Jack Murtha by a segment of the Left has bothered me now for a few months. Not that I agree with the Swift Boating of any and every open critic of this Administration (see Wilson, Joseph; Kerry, John; Gore, Al), but when will Progressives ever learn that the worn old adage, "my enemy's enemy is my friend" is in fact a crock of buffalo chips?
Fortunately, I see that I'm not alone. Mark Spittle, risking the ultimate punishment for a wayward blogger ("delinking"), takes the canonization head on:
Let me summarize what I said yesterday. Jack Murtha is a right wing, gun toting, anti-abortion, anti-environment, anti-animal rights, pro military nutjob who is not by any stretch of the imagination a "moderate." I want you to read this next sentence slowly, and let it roll around your mind like a fine wine in the front of your mouth: he's farther to the right than Joe Lieberman on almost every political position. If you think Murtha is a moderate, then you must think Lieberman (who some Dems are considering tossing out of the party) is a Marxist. Got it?Murtha's also about as far as you can get from "the real deal" for Democrats as Earth is from 2003 UB313. He openly supported Reagan during the Iran-Contra crisis and thereafter supported every military action by every President, including all the ones named Bush, up until his recent Damascus road enlightenment. His origins as a Democrat are hardly the stuff of legend: running in a special election to fill the seat of a dead guy (there's opportunity knocking for ya), Murtha went in with almost 8,000 More registered Democrats than his anemic Republican opponent, yet managed to win only by 200 or so votes. Way to energize the electorate. That he got re-elected time after time since then is hardly an endorsement from voters, but more a statement on the growing problems of ballot access restrictions and the powers of incumbency.
I know the frothers on the right love to bring up Murtha's involvement as an "unindicted co-conspirator" of Abscam, and they always conveniently forget to tell you he was excused of any wrongdoing by both a grand jury and a House ethics panel. But one has to ask: who's more innocent, the guy who shows up in a dingy hotel room for a bribe from an oil Sheikh, but opts out at the last minute, or the guy who, ... oh, I don't know, maybe doesn't even go at all?
There's nothing I can add to those paragraphs: Mark put into words exactly my qualms (which I expressed yet again yesterday in comments at the otherwise excellent FDL). You don't bunk down with rattlesnakes just because there are wolves nearby.
My question to the Left is this: Why do we feel so compelled to champion Murtha when we have so many anti-war leaders who are on our side on all the other issues important to Progressives? Feingold, Gore, Edwards, Boxer - the list goes on. Why do we feel that volunteering (or being drafted) for armed conflict somehow makes someone more credible than those who have built their reputations defending peace? If we truly believe in the superiority of the battle-hardened soldier, then why even allow women into politics at all, since US law still, ostensibly, excludes us from the battlefield?
To whom the &@(*&% are we appealing when we adopt such a position? Sixty percent of the post-Vietnam generation (those not old enough to fight when it ended in 1975) don't even vote in Presidential year elections. This is the demographic, when they do turn out to vote, which lines up fairly strongly behind Democrats, not just because of our stance on social issues (younger people are more tolerant as a group than their elders) but because of our position on American strength and security through peaceful negotiation, not warmongering. Banging the war drums has done little to get them to the polls. Maybe if we focused more on our key positions which benefit this demographic, good jobs, healthcare, childcare and family support, consumer protection, the environment, etc., we'd see more of them involved, not only voting, but actively participating in the democratic process.
Mark will probably take some flack for his admonishment of some of the big dogs on the Left. But as Professor Dumbledore, a figure recognized by most of us in this generation, reminds us, it takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies. But it takes even more to stand up to your friends.
Addendum: I was reading Mark's piece from yesterday (also on Murtha) and ran across this wonderful analogy:
Rather than take the position of winners in the psychological battle for hearts and minds, and welcome the newbie to sanity, Liberals instead reveal their own inherent insecurities and worsen things by heaping unwarranted praise on these people. We're like the pathetic kid in the neighborhood who has no friends; one day a girl smiles at him, and the kid goes overboard asking the girl to marry him, move to Spain and build a castle together. And he's only six.
Comments
I think we need to lighten up on Murtha in both directions. It is true that he is to the right of most of the Democratic party. But consider where his district is. This is a place where the opening day of deer season is a school holiday. This is a place full of blue collar people who left the Democratic party in droves in the 80s. If the Democratic party isn't big enough for people like Murtha, we're screwed.
Should we be holding up Murtha as the best we've got? Certainly not. However, he does have more credibility with non-Democrats than anybody we've got when it comes to the military. He is simply the best person with a D after his name to call the Preznit on his war, period.
Spittle's post sounds a lot like a litmus test to me. This is the same sort of shit the far right does. I really hope we don't get to that point.
Now, don't get me wrong. Personally, I have zip interest in Murtha running for higher office. I hope his district would some day elect someone more to my liking. But he is there, and he is useful. We'd be nuts not to use him.
Posted by: shargash | February 8, 2006 09:13 AM
My district is surrounded on most sides by Murtha's. In fact, my own Rep., Mike Doyle, is barely to the left of Murtha on most issues, so much so, that I will not vote for him come this November (despite his leading the Autism Caucus.) My dad was born in Nanticoke, and raised in Wilkes Barre, the son and grandson of coal miners. He was a Republican all his life, yet refused to vote for Reagan (or Bush, for that matter.) Murtha actively supported Ronnie throughout his tenure, even on Iran-Contra.
Democrats should have a litmus test - If you don't support basic human and civil rights, then you shouldn't be a Dem. If you want to be a bigot or misogynist in private, fine. Just don't take it out of the closet and legislate it. There's a political party that does that all the time. And it doesn't start with a "D".
Posted by: MB | February 8, 2006 09:31 AM
MB, I don't disagree with anything you said, except for the last part. We've lost all three branches of government and are on the verge of losing our Democracy. We are a few scant votes short of even having the option to filibuster.
When someone stands up and takes a principled stand, I think we need to line up behind him on that issue and not pick at the the things we don't like about him. IMO, that's a fundamental weakness in Democrats that is regularly exploited by Republicans and is part of the reason we've come to the straits we're in.
Posted by: shargash | February 8, 2006 10:01 AM
I think we "champion" Murtha less because he fits a typical Democratic mold, and more because, well, he looks and acts more like one of them, and if one of THEM thinks this war stinks, we ought to be praising that person, no matter what his affiliation.
Posted by: actor212 | February 8, 2006 11:52 AM
I don't think either Mark or I object to praising Murtha for finally coming to his senses. But there are those who do in fact want to politically canonize the guy. "Murtha should give the response to the SOTU!" "Murtha for VP" "Murtha for President!" Thirty years of misbehavior is not wiped out by a single good deed. Have we asked Murtha his position on Iran? How about Chavez? Killing the Cuban Embargo? China? Have him show me he's really changed his warhawk stripes, and maybe I'll be more convinced. Otherwise, it's a one time thing, and I think it hurts us more than helps us, even with those elusive "non-Dems": We'll obviously sacrifice our core Democratic issues just to support a critic of Bush.
Posted by: MB | February 8, 2006 12:13 PM
Uh Oh - Africa Reports its First Bird Flu Case
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184188,00.html
Posted by: lj | February 8, 2006 04:40 PM
We play the cards we're dealt, man. If Murtha got support from progressive Democrats, it was only because he was speaking one message we liked and getting a lot of attention for it from the corporate media, and it was a message that had greater credibility because he is a gun-toting, etc. It isn't like we would vote for him if we lived in his district. But since the corporate media rarely discusses the anti-war messages except to do so in a way as to make the anti-war Americans (the majority now, but you'd never know it from the corporate media's reporting) look like the lunatic fringe, this presented an opportunity to show that we are not the fringe, we are the mainstream. You play the cards you are dealt.
Posted by: DBK | February 10, 2006 07:39 AM