She’ll get you, Rep. Murtha, you little pretty
Yesterday I stood at Arlington National Cemetery attending the funeral of a young marine in my district. He believed in what we were doing is the right thing and had the courage to lay his life on the line to do it. A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp, Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do. Danny and the rest of America and the world want the assurance from this body - that we will see this through.
- Jean Schmidt
How do you describe a politician so craven, so partisan, so mean-spirited that she has the balls to go onto the House floor and refer to a fellow member of the House (albeit a Democrat) and a Vietnam War veteran as a coward. Well, “Republican” and “Jean Schmidt” would be a good start. Then again, if Jean Schmidt is your average, run-of-the-mill Republican Congressman (which she certainly is), then the GOP is in even more trouble than I’d hoped.
Friday’s debate on the House floor over the GOP’s sham resolution (If it’s own author is calling for it’s defeat, how can it be taken seriously?) calling for the immediate withdrawal from Iraq provided an opportunity for too many Republicans to prove their patriotic bonafides. Clearly, though, few of the Republicans calling for us to “stay the course” have ever seen a day’s combat, much less served in the military, though they seem to have no problem denigrating and insulting those (Democrat) members who have done both. Jean Schmidt, who’s never met a Democrat she couldn’t smear, trotted out the tired old “cowards cut and run” Republican mantra. THIS is the sort of principled leadership the people from her rural Ohio district expect and deserve? The woman’s a friggin’ idiot….
The fiery, emotional debate climaxed when Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, the most junior member of the House, told of a phone call she received from a Marine colonel.
“He asked me to send Congress a message - stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message - that cowards cut and run, Marines never do,” Schmidt said.
Democrats booed and shouted her down - causing the House to come to a standstill.
Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn., charged across the chamber’s center aisle screaming that it was an uncalled for personal attack. “You guys are pathetic. Pathetic,” yelled Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass.
Yes, they are. Though they have no war record of their own, and indeed, most of their combat experience has been limited to the occasional snowball fight or political smear campaign, these Yellow Elephant Republicans feel they have the right to criticize war heroes like John Murtha when they raise legitimate questions about the conduct of and plan for the pointless, endless war in Iraq.
Jean Schmidt is but the latest example of this reprehensible brand of It’s-Patriotic-And-Worthwhile-As-Long-As-Someone-Else’s-Child-Is-Doing-The-Fighting-And-Dying Republicans. It’s far too easy to question someone’s patriotism and love of country from the warm, safe confines of Capitol Hill. Calling a Vietnam War veteran a “coward” is beyond reprehensible. Consider the source, though, and get a good look, y’all. As DUMB@$$E$ go, they don’t come much dumber, clueless, and mean-spirited than Jean Schmidt.
To make matters even worse, Schmidt later attempted to have her remarks stricken from the Congressional Record:
Schmidt was later forced to return to the House floor and have her remarks stricken from the record. Despite having said the purpose of her “coward statement was to “send Congressman Murtha a message, Schmidt claimed:
Mr. Speaker, my remarks were not directed to any member of the House and I did not intend to suggest they applied to any member, most especially the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania.
This was, of course, after specifically naming and insulting Rep. John Murtha by name:
He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.
Jean Schmidt: craven, self-absorbed politician. Confirmed DUMB@$$ par excellence. Lying sack of dog excrement. People like Schmidt deserve to be sent to Iraq to act as IED magnets. Perhaps when she gets an taste of what the war is actually like for so many Americans, she’ll be less inclined to indict and condemn those veterans who are questioning the conduct of this generation’s Vietnam. Then again, I doubt it; she is, after all, truly a DUMB@$$ worthy of the name.
