This is for those who continue to deny there is no liberal media bias.
Murtha's Tantrum
BY JAMES TARANTO
Best of the Web
Monday, December 12, 2005
Newsweek's cover story is a hit piece on the president called "Bush in the Bubble," meant to suggest that he is out of touch. It begins with a story from that media saint, Rep. John Murtha:
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Jack Murtha still can't figure out why the father and son treated him so differently. Every week or so before the '91 gulf war, President George H.W. Bush would invite Congressman Murtha, along with other Hill leaders, to the White House. "He would listen to all the bitching from everybody, Republicans and Democrats, and then he would do what he thought was right." A decorated Vietnam veteran, ex-Marine Murtha was a critical supporter for the elder Bush on Capitol Hill. "I led the fight for the '91 war," he says. "I led the fight, for Christ's sake."
Yet 13 years later, when Murtha tried to write George W. Bush with some suggestions for fighting the Iraq war, the congressman's letter was ignored by the White House (after waiting for seven months, Murtha received a polite kiss-off from a deputy under secretary of Defense). Murtha, who has always preferred to operate behind the scenes, finally went public, calling for an orderly withdrawal from Iraq.
In the furor that followed, a White House spokesman compared the Vietnam War hero to "Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party." When that approach backfired, President Bush called Murtha a "fine man . . . who served our country with honor." The White House has made no attempt to reach out to Murtha since then. "None. None. Zero. Not one call," a baffled Murtha told Newsweek. "I don't know who the hell they're talking to. If they talked to people, they wouldn't get these outbursts. If they'd talked to me, it wouldn't have happened."
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So by Murtha's own description, his call to cut and run from Iraq was merely a response to a perceived slight. It's reminiscent of a decade-old incident, described in a 2001 story by Newhouse News Service:
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A 1995 trip on Air Force One triggered a tantrum by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who bitterly complained about having to ride in the back of the plane and use a rear exit on a round-trip flight to Israel with President Clinton for the funeral of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
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The difference between the two incidents is that Gingrich's "tantrum" didn't endanger national security. But how is it that their respective fits of pique led the media to make Newt a goat and Murtha a hero?
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