White House's pathetic attack on Murtha

Bob Geiger on the Yellow Dog Blog:

Some smears by Team Bush are infuriating and some are just flat-out desperate and pathetic. The White House issued this press release last night on John Murtha's (D-PA) call for an immediate U.S. exit from Iraq:

Congressman Murtha is a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting a strong America. So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party. The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists. After seeing his statement, we remain baffled -- nowhere does he explain how retreating from Iraq makes America safer.

Now, there's nothing in the world wrong with Moore's positions, so he's not really the issue here. Plus, making Michael Moore the liberal bogyman is just so 2004.

But is this really the best they can do? Did they run out of Purple Heart Band Aids to wear around the Capitol to ridicule Murtha's military decorations as they did with John Kerry last year? To me, this, and the other Republican hysterics yesterday, are a very positive sign of an opposition coming apart at the seams.

In Murtha, you have a 73-year-old man, who spent 37 years in the Marine Corps, is a thrice-decorated combat veteran who's been given the American Legion National Distinguished Public Service Award and the Iron Mike Award -- the highest honor of the Marine Corps League -- and the GOP tries to paint him as a wimp who wants to "surrender to the terrorists."

Here's a Congressman elected 15 times by his constituents, who's been given the Pennsylvania Distinguished Service Medal, the Public Service Award of the National Security Industry Association and been honored as a health-care champion by a long list of cancer groups -- and their best shot is to try to make him look like a left-wing, evil-doer?

Where does being nasty and craven end and being a bizarre caricature of a political party begin?

Does anyone else hear a Swift Boat engine revving up yet?

---

This from Dana Milbank in the WashPost:

In his 37 years in the military, John Murtha won two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star with a Combat "V," and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. As a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania for the past 31 years, he has been a fierce hawk, championing conflicts in Central America and the Persian Gulf.

Yesterday, he was called a coward.

Read the rest.