I think it’s time for Jack Murtha to go. You know, the guy that called 7 innocent soldiers cold-blooded murderers, the guy that wanted to slow-bleed our troops out of Iraq, the guy that called his constituents first racists and then rednecks, and now vows not to lose to a “carpetbagger from Virginia.”

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“[A] carpetbagger from Virginia is going to represent a heavily Democratic district? No way. No G** d*** way."

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This “carpetbagger” he’s running against Lt. Col. (Ret.) William Russell, whose “home” addresses spanned some eleven states and seven countries” during his 28 years of service to our country in the army and reserves, who served “six tours in hostile fire zones” including Operation Desert Storm, Kosovo and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and helped in the rescue efforts when he and his wife were in the Pentagon on 9/11. Please Pennsylvania, send this disgrace packing.

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

I think it’s time for Jack Murtha to go...the guy that wanted to "slow-bleed our troops out of Iraq"

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Ironically, in part, what you say here about Murtha I've been saying about Dubya ever since you re-elected him in 2004.

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Originally Posted by BABRAM

Ironically, in part, what you say here about Murtha I've been saying about Dubya ever since you re-elected him in 2004.

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I don't recall Bush ever calling his constituents racists, rednecks, demeaning the troops that serve honorably and calling to "slow-bleed" them out of Iraq. This is about Murtha, not Bush - who in case you haven't figured it out yet, will be gone in a few months regardless. Try to stay on topic here.

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

I don't recall Bush ever calling his constituents racists, rednecks, demeaning the troops that serve honorably and calling to "slow-bleed" them out of Iraq. This is about Murtha, not Bush - who in case you haven't figured it out yet, will be gone in a few months regardless. Try to stay on topic here.

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I've noticed that your little pool is a bit shallow for most of us on this board. Murtha was a grade "A" jack@$$ for not having the tact needed to get across a point using some dignity. Whoop-tee-do! However, Murtha, didn't get our nation into this quagmire. That would be the clown you voted for twice, "Dubya." And to give you a heads up, that clown that you voted for twice will be leaving the White House, but the consequence of his actions will long linger on. ;)

Casualties in Iraq - 2008

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Originally Posted by BABRAM

I've noticed that your little pool is a bit shallow for most of us on this board. Murtha was a grade "A" jack@$$ for not using the tact needed to get across a point. Whoop-tee-do! However, Murtha, didn't get our nation into this quagmire. That would be the clown you voted for twice, "Dubya." And to give you a heads up, that clown that you voted for twice will be leaving the White House, but the consequence of his actions will long linger on. ;)

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I see you still can’t keep from swerving entirely away from the topic, which is Murtha, who slanders our troops and his opponent and calls his constituents racists and rednecks. Bush is not running for re-election, Murtha is.

Tex, I didn't know you moved to Pennsylvania?? John Murtha made his uncouth statement back in 2007 and yet just about a week ago he received the Public Policy Award from the Marshall Legacy Institute. That figures that you're now concerned with Murtha, but it was OK for you to vote Dubya not just once, but twice? That sales like another McCain disasterious campaign plan. BTW it's many of Dubya's policies that are up for re-election and are trying to survive vicariously through John McCain.

A carpet bagger from Virginia ? Does ABSCAM JACK mean from the time Russell served in the Pentagon ?

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Originally Posted by BABRAM

Tex, I didn't know you moved to Pennsylvania???

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I figure if Europeans and Canadians can push for Obama I can have a preference for someone in another state that has an effect on my country.

Yeah get rid of him. He's saying some stupid things. Probably been hanging around with all the other old rich white guys too long who look down on people. But who really cares Steve?

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

I figure if Europeans and Canadians can push for Obama I can have a preference for someone in another state that has an effect on my country.

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They have no choice. Our US govt is always in someone else's backyard.

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Originally Posted by BABRAM

They have no choice. Our US govt is always in someone else's backyard.

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Oh I forgot, we invaded Canada last week didn't we?

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Originally Posted by Skell

Yeah get rid of him. He's saying some stupid things. Probably been hanging around with all the other old rich white guys too long who look down on people. But who really cares Steve?

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Apparently the people he's unfairly and irresponsibly smeared. Once again Skell, a Democrat shows his true colors and gets a pass but if a Republican had said what he did he would be slammed in the media relentlessly... just as McCain would be slammed relentlessly if he had been caught partying with the kind of radicals Obama did. I'd like to see the same standards apply to both sides, especially here since Murtha is showing himself to be the real "redneck" in this story.

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

Oh I forgot, we invaded Canada last week didn't we?

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We invade Canada everyday. You didn't know that??

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

just as McCain would be slammed relentlessly if he had been caught partying with the kind of radicals Obama did. I'd like to see the same standards apply to both sides, especially here since Murtha is showing himself to be the real "redneck" in this story.

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Hello Steve:

Couple things... McCain is friends with G. Gordon Liddy - a crook. Now, I know that YOU don't think he's crook, so it's OK for McCain to pal around with him.

But, he IS a crook, and if I want to paint McCain with THAT brush, I'd be correct. So, the same standards ARE being imposed on both sides. You just don't like it.

Murtha isn't politically correct. I like that - don't you? Wasn't there a post about political correct speech being something some liberal dreamed up?? So, I happen to like Murtha's truth. The people he's talking about ARE racists and red necks. Would you prefer your congressmen to lie??

excon

He is also a smear merchant corruptocrat .For that he has to go.

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello Steve:

Couple things... McCain is friends with G. Gordon Liddy - a crook. Now, I know that YOU don't think he's crook, so it's OK for McCain to pal around with him.

But, he IS a crook, and if I want to paint McCain with THAT brush, I'd be correct. So, the same standards ARE being imposed on both sides. You just don't like it.

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I never said Liddy wasn’t a crook, I said he had served his time and Carter commuted his sentence. I would think you might understand and give ex-cons that have paid the penalty and kept their nose clean a break. Ayers on the other hand got off on a technicality said he didn’t do enough, makes no apology for his terrorist acts and won’t say he wouldn’t do it again. How was the same standard applied to McCain/Hagee and Obama/Wright? George “Macaca” Allen and Jack “racist/redneck/carpetbagger/cold-blooded murder” Murtha?

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Murtha isn't politically correct. I like that - don't you? Wasn't there a post about political correct speech being something some liberal dreamed up?? So, I happen to like Murtha's truth. The people he's talking about ARE racists and red necks. Would you prefer your congressmen to lie??

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Well, if that’s the standard you should love “f*** yourself” Cheney and John “horses**t” McCain.

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

Apparently the people he's unfairly and irresponsibly smeared. Once again Skell, a Democrat shows his true colors and gets a pass but if a Republican had said what he did he would be slammed in the media relentlessly...just as McCain would be slammed relentlessly if he had been caught partying with the kind of radicals Obama did. I'd like to see the same standards apply to both sides, especially here since Murtha is showing himself to be the real "redneck" in this story.

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Ive been watching the news. He has copped it left, right and centre. You knew about it. Its up to the people to decide now.

I think you guys overplay the "unfair biased media" card way too much.

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Originally Posted by Skell

Ive been watching the news. He has copped it left, right and centre. You knew about it. Its up to the people to decide now.

I think you guys overplay the "unfair biased media" card way too much.

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Ya think? Try this...

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Media's Presidential Bias and Decline
Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons
Column By MICHAEL S. MALONE

Oct. 24, 2008 —

The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I'm cut. I am a fourth-generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kan. during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian).

My hard-living -- and when I knew her, scary -- grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I've spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.

So, when I say I'm deeply ashamed right now to be called a "journalist," you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.

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Or this...

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Canvassing Campaign Media: An Analysis of Time, Tone and Topics

October 22, 2008

The media coverage of the race for president has not so much cast Barack Obama in a favorable light as it has portrayed John McCain in a substantially negative one, according to a new study of the media since the two national political conventions ended.

Press treatment of Obama has been somewhat more positive than negative, but not markedly so.

But coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable -- and has become more so over time. In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three-to-one -- the most unfavorable of all four candidates -- according to the study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed. A smaller number (29%) were negative.

For McCain, by comparison, nearly six-in-ten stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%), while fewer than two-in-ten (14%) were positive.

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http://pewresearch.org/assets/publications/1001-1.gif

If ever we were justified it's now.

Michael Malone. Isn't he the tech reporter?

To be honest I don't know, but if ABC promoted it there must be something to it. What about the Pew Research study?

TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | McCain Campaign's Ad Spending Now Nearly 100 Percent Devoted To Attack Ads

"The McCain campaign has now shifted virtually 100 percent of his national ad spending into negative ads attacking Obama, a detailed breakdown of his ad buys reveals.

By contrast, the Obama campaign is devoting less than half of its overall ad spending to ads attacking McCain. More than half of its spending is going to a spot that doesn't once mention his foe.

I asked Evan Tracey -- who tracks national ad spending for the Campaign Media Analysis Group -- to detail the amounts each campaign is spending on specific different spots. The idea was to gauge the precise degree of the McCain campaign's shift into negative mode amid his slide in the polls, and determine whether the Obama camp was following suit.

The results were striking, and suggest a sharper turn into negative campaigning as time runs low. For one thing, Tracey says, Obama is now outspending McCain by nearly two to one on the air -- Obama is spending $2.4 million per week, and McCain is spending $1.3 million weekly. But on to the breakdowns.

As of October 1 -- three days ago -- the McCain campaign's $1.3 million weekly is being broken down as follows, according to Tracey, who stressed that he himself wasn't labeling the ads either "positive" or "negative":


* Nearly half a million weekly is funding the ad called "Dome," which attacks "Obama and his liberal allies" in Congress for favoring "massive government."

* A shade more than half a million is funding the ad called "Mum," which attacks "Obama and his liberal allies" as "mum on the market crisis."

* Much of the remaining McCain money is funding a spot called "Overseas," which says that "Barack Obama and his liberal allies are to blame" for jobs going overseas. A negligible amount of the remainder is going to a positive spot, the "Original Mavericks" ad.

This is a dramatic shift from the period before he suspended his campaign. At that time, Tracey says, McCain was spending in the neighborhood of half his ad money on the positive "Original Mavericks" ad, and around half on the negative "Dome" spot.

This week, by contrast, "Original Mavericks" ran on Monday only eight times, suggesting that this positive spot is "cycling out of the rotation," as Tracey puts it. "McCain took out the "Mavericks" spot and replaced it with "Mum," Tracey says.

Now let's look at Obama's spending breakdown.

Of his $2.4 million weekly, Tracey says, well over half -- $1.4 million -- is funding the spot called "Real Change," which criticizes the status quo but doesn't mention McCain once.

The remaining million per week is funding a smattering of ads that do attack McCain, on topics like Social Security, health care, and McCain's "fundamentals of the economy" line.

Pretty striking contrast."

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

To be honest I don't know, but if ABC promoted it there must be something to it. What about the Pew Research study?

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Im not denying that your study looks bad. But studies are studies. Facts and data can be twisted to produce any outcome the writer wants (Look at the previous gun debates between Elliot and I).

If I googled I'm sure I could find a report that produces results that show the amount of negative radio and print media against Obama far outweighs McCain. They mean nothing. I prefer to go on what I see and hear for myself. And what I am seeing and hearing is a sh1tload of mud slinging from both sides. No camp is better or worse off than the other. You guys just don't like it because your getting beat. So its everyone else fault other than the Republicans themselves. That's where the blame lies. They've nominated the wrong guy, nominated the wrong gal, run a poor campaign and their current leader has stuffed up all and sundry.

It isn't the media's fault you guys are copping a caning. Time to look in the mirror. Its all excuses and whinging. You sure you aren't a politician Steve? :) ;)

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Originally Posted by Skell

It aint the media's fault you guys are copping a caning. Time to look in the mirror. Its all excuses and whinging. You sure you aren't a politician Steve?? :) ;)

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Do you think I base this on studies? It's by what I see, hear and read. It's every day in my paper, every day on the radio, every day on TV and it doesn't take a genius to see the obvious bias, they don't even try to mask it as "news" any more.

When Obama says "spread the wealth" or " its above my paygrade" or to quote Murtha for what he said... how is that negative?

inthebox, the left has a blind spot when it comes to their own negativity. They live by the smear, they're like the football player that throws a punch after a play, and when the guy punches back he raises his hands and says, "did you see what that guy did?" Jonah Goldberg touched on this phenomenon beautifully:

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Transcend means “to move beyond, to surpass.” At least that’s what I always thought. But I’m beginning to wonder whether it means instead: “Much, much more of the same, only this time really stupid.”

Exhibit A: the incessant, relentless, click-your-ruby-red-slippers-and-say-it-until-it-comes-true mantra that Barack Obama will magically cause America to “transcend race.” One hears and reads this everywhere, but less as an argument than as a prayer, an expression of faith, a “from my lips to The One’s ear” sort of thing.

It is, of course, total and complete nonsense. According to L.B.O. (Logic Before Obama), transcending race would involve making race less of an issue. Passengers on Spaceship Obama would see race shrink and then vanish in the rearview mirror.

Instead, Obama has set off a case of full-blown race dementia among precisely the crowd that swears Obama is leading us out of the racial wilderness. Rather than shrink, the tumor of racial paranoia is metastasizing, pressing down on the medulla oblongata or whatever part of the brain that, when poked, causes one to hallucinate, conjure false memories and write astoundingly insipid things. For instance, a writer for Slate sees racism when anyone notes that Barack Obama is — wait for it — skinny. What this portends for Fat Albert is above my pay grade.

We need to rewrite those old Schoolhouse Rock cartoons, because now virtually any adjective, noun, verb, or adverb aimed at Barack Obama that is not obsequiously sycophantic or wantonly worshipful runs the risk of being decried as racist. Community organizer? Racist! Mentioning his middle name? Racist! Arrogant? Racist! Palling around with a (white) terrorist? Racist! Celebrity? Racist! Cosmopolitan? Racist! This? Racist! That? Racist! The other thing? Oh man, that’s really racist.

The new Schoolhouse Rock cartoon: “Conjunction: a word that connects a racist attack and Barack Obama.”...

The idea that Obama was ever really about transcending race flies completely in the face of his own writings. The overarching theme of his book Dreams From My Father is the story of man who found it impossible to transcend race and instead explicitly chose to have a racial identity when he didn’t have to (he describes fellow multiracial students he met in college as sellouts). He then joined a black church whose theology is shot-through with black nationalism and whose longtime pastor believes that black brains are different from white brains.

But, yes, I know: The above paragraph reads: “Blah, blah, blah ... racist, racism, racey-race-racism.”

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When Obama plays to voter fears on Social Security and Medicare in misleading ads in Florida or accuses McCain of a racial slur in a Spanish language ad they call it truth and just say he was "responding to McCain's attacks." If McCain said "the sky is blue" they'd scream that he was attacking McCain and wonder why we aren't talking about real issues. Just like that smear merchant Murtha...