The Murtha Shuffle

Just watched John Murtha on Chris Matthew's Hardball despite the fact you could see Matthews' testicles shrinking as the interview went on. Murtha did the classic "What 800 pound gorilla?" while Matthews gave "his friend" more free passes than a hall monitor on the take (Remember, Matthews worked for Tip O'Neill; it is alleged that O'Neill helped bail out Murtha when he was caught on tape during the ABSCAM sting turning down a cash bribe but reserving the right to change his mind). His story about whether or not he considered it a bribe attempt at the time and why he did not report it has evolved over the years, not to mention what he thought was going on:

MATTHEWS: But what do you mean when you said I'm not interested at this point. I'm not interested maybe at some point?
MURTHA: No, no, listen.
MATTHEWS: Thats on the tape.
MURTHA: I know, but what I said was I want to continue to talk to you guys, I want investment in the district. That's all I was interested in.
MATTHEWS: But did you smell corruption in that conversation?
MURTHA: Sure. I saw these guys were trying to corrupt me and trying to...
MATTHEWS: ... Did you think they were legitimate emissaries for an Arab big shot or did you think they were...
MURTHA: They were the slimiest guys I've ever seen.
MATTHEWS: Well why didn't you walk out of the room the minute you met them?
MURTHA: Well listen, they said they were going to invest in the district.

Now Murtha on the ABSCAM tape (verbatim):

MURTHA: Let's be honest about it. This poor son of a bitch could be killed
tomorrow, and you know I could be in it, and forget about it and so forth. Or,
but when I make a fuckin' deal I want to make sure that I know exactly what I'm
doing and either I can do something for you or I cannot do something for you.
And what I'm sayin' is, a few investments in my district, a few, you know, is
big to me, to this guy apparently is not too big, to a couple banks there which
would get their attention. And investment in a business where you could
legitimately say to me -- when I say legitimately, I'm talking about so
these bastards up here can't say to me, well, why, in eight years from now,
that's possible, we'd never hear a thing for eight years, but all at once, ah,
some dumb bastard would, ah, go start talking eight years from now, ah, about
the whole thing and say, "Jesus Christ, ah, this happened," then he, then he, in
order to get immunity so he doesn't go to jail, he starts talking and fingering
people and then the son of a bitch all falls apart. (Italics added)

About three minutes later Murtha tells the undercover agents:

"A business commitment that makes it imperative for me to help him. Just, let me
tell you something. I'm sure if -- and there's a lot of things I've done up
here, with environmental regulations, with all kinds of waivers of laws and
regulations. If it weren't for being in the district, people would say... "Well
that son of a bitch, I'm gonna tell you something....This guy is, uh, you know,
on the take." Well once they say that, what happens? Then they start going
around looking for the goddamn money. So I want to avoid that by having some tie
to the district. That's all. That's the secret to the whole thing."

What is underreported is the fact that this is small stuff compared to the tens of millions Murtha helped funnel to clients in the defense industry represented by his brother. This guy potentially did the same or similar things Duke Cunningham is now in in prison for, disgraced and rightfully so. By the way - anyone who says this is a "swiftvetting" of Murtha is either absurdly uninformed or only cares about ethics when it does no harm to his or her party. Period.