Murtha's Anti-War Pessimism Leads the Times

"Fast Withdrawal Of G.I.'s Is Urged By Key Democrat" is the headline to Eric Schmitt's lead story on Friday. That would of course be Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, whose tale led all the networks news shows Thursday night.

"The partisan furor over the Iraq war ratcheted up sharply on Capitol Hill on Thursday, as an influential House Democrat on military matters called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops and Republicans escalated their attacks against the Bush administration's critics�.'Our military has done everything that has been asked of them. It is time to bring them home,' Mr. Murtha said, at times choking back tears. Mr. Murtha's proposal, which goes well beyond the phased withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq that other moderate Democrats have proposed, stunned many Republicans who quickly held their own news conference to criticize the plan."

Schmitt's labeling of Murtha ("a Vietnam combat veteran who voted for the Iraq war") as a moderate Democrat is more accurate than that of his "continuous news desk" colleague David Stout, whose Thursday afternoon filing for the Times website called Murtha a "conservative." Not a "conservative Democrat" (which is also debatable), but simply a conservative: "Mr. Murtha, a conservative who voted in 2002 for the resolution authorizing use of force in Iraq and who supported the Persian Gulf war in 1991, called for 'the immediate redeployment of American forces.'"

While Murtha is no Bernie Sanders, his lifetime voting record rating of 33 from the American Conservative Unionputs him to the left of center.

Returning to Schmitt, he indirectly admits the effectiveness of a GOP ad using past Democratic quotes to make the point that virtually everyone once assumed Hussein had WMD: "Democrats have unleashed an advertisement to counter the Republicans' powerful Web advertisement that quotes prominent Democrats, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who had earlier voiced support for the war and Mr. Bush."

Schmitt touches on a fact many outlets have ignored -- that criticizing the war is nothing new for Murtha: "In recent months, though, Mr. Murtha has voiced concerns raised by constituents and from his own conversations with troops and commanders about problems like shortages of body armor and other equipment."

But not just "in recent months." Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters found this from the Times from September 17, 2003 (in a Page 12 story, unlike today's headlines) of Murtha calling forDefense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. Reporter David Firestone summarized: "Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a decorated Vietnam veteran, said that he had been misled into voting for the war by incorrect information from top administration officials and that the president had also been misled."

And CNNquoted Murtha on May 6, 2004, saying "the [Iraq War's] direction has got be changed or it is unwinnable."

To comment on the Times' lead coverage of Rep. Murtha's anti-war comments, visit MRC's blog NewsBusters.

For the rest of Stout's early online version, click here.

For Schmitt's front-page version, click here.



"Iraq Dogs President"

David Sanger joins Bush on his Asian trip and follows the president to South Korea, where Sanger files, naturally, a story about Iraq: "Iraq Dogs President as He Crosses Asia to Promote Trade." "Iraq Dogs President" is about as revelatory as "Dog Bites Man," but the Times finds it an interesting news hook.

"President Bush may have come to Asia determined to show leaders here that his agenda is far broader than Iraq and terrorism, but at every stop, and every day, Mr. Bush and his aides have been fighting a rearguard action to justify how the United States got into Iraq and how to get out."

Sanger does report how the White House struck back at a recent misleading Times editorial on Bush's use of pre-war intelligence: "Three times so far since Mr. Bush left Washington on Monday, the White House has also issued detailed rebuttals on Iraq issues under the rubric 'Setting the Record Straight.' One was devoted to answering an editorial in The New York Times on prewar intelligence, and two others responded to Democratic critics, quoting their own words about Iraq back to them, arguing that they, too, had believed Saddam Hussein possessed illicit weapons."

For more Sanger, click here.



"The Human Instinct to Fight Oppression"

Liberal movie critic Stephen Holden adds a little of hispro-Palestinian slant to the end of his review of "Private," a movie about Israeli forces commandeering the home of a Palestinian man: "But 'Private' also shows the human instinct to fight oppression, even if that rebellion risks disaster. It's what oppressed people do."

For more Holden, click here.



The Times Discovers "Liberals"

David Kirkpatrick, the Times man on the conservative beat, oftenoverloads his stories with unnecessary repetitions of the word "conservative." But his last few have been quite balanced on the labeling front, revealing to perhaps shocked Times readers that there are in fact such things as "liberals" in Washington. Kirkpatrick's Friday piece on the fight over Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito balanced seven references to "conservatives" with five "liberals."

For more Kirkpatrick, click here.