The Final Lowdown On John Murtha's Corruption

Friday's Wall Street Journal featured a shocking article by John Fund.

Apparently based on information Fund obtained from recently deceased, long-time Texas Democratic Representative Charlie Wilson, it revealed also recently deceased Pennsylvania Democratic Representative John Murtha's explicit guilt of corrupt practices as far back as the Abscam sting of the 1970s.

Wilson is now famous for the book and movie portraying his political leadership, with Ronald Reagan, in the war against the Soviets, through our proxies in Afghanistan.

What Fund's piece details is that Tip O'Neill, then Speaker of the House, ended the special prosecutor appointed by the House Ethics Committee, E. Barrett Prettyman, Jr.'s investigation, when it was clear that Prettyman had Murtha in his sites.

To do this, O'Neill named Wilson to the Ethics Committee in order to protect Murtha. Fund refers to CBS producer George Crile's 2003 book about Wilson, Charlie Wilson's War, from which the movie was made. According to Fund, Crile wrote,

"Before Prettyman could fully deploy his investigators to move on the Murtha case, he was informed that the committee had concluded there was no justification for an investigation."

Fund notes that Prettyman resigned his post "the same afternoon the committee voted to clear Mr. Murtha."

He then writes,

"When I called Wilson in 2006 to ask if the Crile account was accurate, he reluctantly confirmed that it was. He also noted, "I hope nothing will hurt" Murtha's bid to become majority leader."

Sickening, isn't it?

I mean, Charlie Wilson did a good thing regarding the Afghanistan war. But look at what he, O'Neill and Murtha did on the ethics front.

They were all scum. They violated their oaths of office, conspired to cover up corruption and extend the career of a corrupt Representative.

Regardless of the party, this is just wrong. Look how the Democrats immediately closed ranks and, from the Ethics Committee, of all places, shut down an investigation, by their own appointed special prosecutor, which they knew would indeed find corruption.

No wonder why Tea Party movement members and supporters distrust Washington politicians. This week's revelations reinforce why we can't trust either party's long-serving, entrenched legislators to abide by their oaths, call out their colleagues for misconduct, or remember whom they serve.

Good News About John Murtha!

He's dead!

Yes, indeed, liberal spending and earmark king John Murtha, Representative of the Johnstown area of Pennsylvania, is finally out of the House. Feet first.

Perhaps the most glaring example of Murtha's waste of your money is the needless airport he has continued to feed with taxpayer cash for years. The stories I've read in the Wall Street Journal are revolting. I think the airport has something like only 2 flights per day, and tickets are heavily subsidized by, well, you.

Less visible, but far more corrosive, was Murtha's habit of handing out tax breaks and special legislative favors to any business willing to set up shop in Murtha's district and employee his voters.

We're talking about businesses that had no other reason to be in the middle of Pennsylvania, save some very juicy tax preferences from Murtha.

It's one thing for states to decide to lure businesses and jobs by using their tax policies. It's quite another for a US Representative to use federal taxpayer money to fund sweetheart deals to lure businesses to his own district.

Hopefully, with Murtha's death, someone less damaging to the Republic will be elected in his stead.

But, for now, we can be grateful...and happy...that this uber-liberal spendthrift has finally stopped costing us taxpayers any more money.

Senate Continues Funding John Murtha's Private Airport

Last Tuesday's Wall Street Journal carried an unbelievable editorial concerning the Senate's continuation of funding for Pennsylvania Democratic Representative John Murtha's private airport in Johnstown, PA.

South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint proposed an amendment to cease federal funding of the Pennsylvanian's boondoggle. Incredibly, it was defeated by a vote of 53-47, with Republicans Kit Bond (MO) and George Voinovich (O) voting against DeMint's amendment.

The Journal quotes DeMint as pleading,

"If we can't cut funding for this project, we can't cut anything in Washington."

So true. It's not like Murtha is even a Senator. But he evidently has enough chits collected among his own party's Senators, and, for some inexplicable reason, retiring Republican Senators Bond and Voinovich, as well, to manage to escape the budgetary knife.

For the record, the airport, with its three daily commercial flights- all to D.C.- has received in excess of $150MM over the last twenty years. Tickets for the flights carry an average $100 subsidy, paid for, of course, by you, the taxpayer.

The airport boasts an $8.5MM radar system that has never been used, and even managed to get $800,000 of so-called stimulus money earlier this year.

As the Journal noted, this 'airport in the middle of nowhere' may well become the Democrat's version of the infamous Republican "bridge to nowhere" of several election cycles ago.

Let's hope so. And maybe the end of Murtha's tenure, too.