It's a well-known fact that no Democrat ever deserved the Purple Heart. A now-dead veteran whose name I cannot remember told me that Max Clelland cut himself shaving.
Murtha's War Hero Status Called Into Question By Marc Morano and Randy Hall CNSNews.com Staff January 13, 2006
Read Article About Murtha's Links to Abscam
(CNSNews.com)
- Having ascended to the national stage as one of the most vocal
critics of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, Pennsylvania
Democratic Congressman John Murtha has long downplayed the controversy
and the bitterness surrounding the two Purple Hearts he was awarded for
military service in Vietnam.
Suggest the ominous in a big
buildup -- people who don't read closely will think there's a lot of
shit on this guy and it's been going on for a long time, it's not
something that just got dragged out now.
Then find some old
veteran to do your dirty work for you so the criticism won't be laid at
the feet of chickenshit bedwetting BushCo. hatchet men:
World
War II Navy veteran Harry M. Fox, previously indicated that Murtha in
1968 personally asked Fox's boss, then-U.S. Rep. John Saylor (R-Pa.),
for assistance in obtaining the Purple Hearts, but was turned down
because Saylor's office determined that Murtha lacked sufficient
evidence of wounds. Murtha later challenged Saylor for his House seat
in 1968 and lost. Fox said he personally viewed Murtha's military
records in 1968 as Saylor's aide.
Make sure your story is unverifiable:
Cybercast
News Service attempted to contact Fox for this article, but learned
that the health of the 81-year-old was too poor to allow him to
communicate.
Bury this caveat in the bottom of the story. People will not read that far.
Marc Morano is Senior Staff Writer for CNSNews.com and is previously
known as Rush Limbaugh’s “Man in Washington,” as reporter and producer
for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show, as well as a former
correspondent and producer for American Investigator, the nationally
syndicated TV newsmagazine. His reporting has made national news with
appearances and coverage on The O'Reilly Factor, Special Report w/ Brit
Hume, USA Today, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, the
American Spectator and Human Events, as well as online with National
Review, Newsmax.com, WorldnetDaily, and the Drudge Report.
Murtha's response is on HuffPo.
"This afternoon, CNSNEWS.com
published an article entitled "Murtha's War Hero Status Called Into
Question" on its website. The article questions the validity of my
purple hearts. This is my response:
"Questions about my record
are clearly an attempt to distract attention from the real issue, which
is that our brave men and women in uniform are dying and being injured
every day in the middle of a civil war that can be resolved only by the
Iraqis themselves."
"I volunteered for a year's duty in
Vietnam. I was out in the field almost every single day. We took heavy
casualties in my regiment the year that I was there. In my fitness
reports, I was rated No. 1. My record is clear."
"Creative Response promoted a Web site called Cybercast News Service " Among its clients
are the Republican National Committee, National Republican
Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Its client list also includes the Christian Coalition. It also the first to report rathergate/font fiasco.
CNSNews.com, aka Cybercast News Service, is owned and operated by Media Research Center.
The following companies all existed within the same range of IP addresses as of last spring, and are all interrelated:
- CNSNews.com (replaced Talon News as news feed provider to Men's Daily News and GOPUSA.com)
- Media Research (owned by Brent Bozell, who also owns Parents Television Council)
- CRC4PR.com (Creative Response, the home of Swift Boat Vet Liars)
- NITF.com (an archiving and storage company serving many of CRC4PR's clients)
- SpecialSystems.com (IT infrastructure company serving most of the above and their clients)
The
other slimey piece of connective tissue here is the Heritage
Foundation. Note that all of the known payola receivers were content
providers to Heritage Foundation's TownHall.com (TownHall split off
sometime this past fall, perhaps to firewall against liability against
Heritage). Many if not all of the entities above serve or are related
by cross-pollination of members with Heritage Foundation, too. Nasty, nasty stuff, insidious, just like a fungus growing and spreading all over everything.
Did you know that Murtha turned down an Abscam bribe? The FBI caught
him on video talking to the fake Arab and Murtha tells him that he'll
think about it and then leaves.
Surely, we're not surprised. If the military commanders won't, when
asked, smear Murtha, others will line up to do the work. The campaign
against him has been already announced. I wish newspapers would refuse
to print unsubstantiated stories like these. It's positively sickening.
And I wouldn't like it any better if Dems mounted similar attacks
against right-wingers. It's tempting, I know, but it's still wrong.
Instead, I wish military commanders would defend him on the record and
demand coverage. Shame on editors.
One fact seems clear -- Republicans only love dead Veterans,
unless there's a photo-op involved.
UPDATE: The Washington Post this morning gives major play this morning to an attack of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) on the website of the (until now) obscure Cybercast News Service. Jane Hamsher who
knows how to do it right, and better than anyone else, has some new
information. A natural born blogger! Jane very importantly points out that Cybercast never even actually interviewed Harry Fox.
Jane
quotes the website as saying: "Cybercast News Service attempted to
contact Fox for this article, but learned that the health of the
81-year-old was too poor to allow him to communicate."
So if I
understand this correctly, regarding the purported allegations by the
late Rep. Saylor that Rep. Murtha did not deserve his Purple Hearts,
the Washington Post is relying on the reporting of the
Cyercast News Service, which is in turn is relying on comments made
years ago by Harry Fox, who is in turn is quoting the late Congressman
Saylor-- who died all the way back in 1973. The Post should
have done a much better job of making this clear in their story-- in my
humble opinion-- if they should have even published a story at all.
Makes you want to drop a dime to Howie Kurtz! But alas, Kurtz wrote the story. Oh well.
Let the 
