The Fun Continues

The WaPo fires two at Speaker Presumptive Pelosi today. Howard Kurtz wonders in Targeting Murtha why we didn't all know about Rep Murtha's ethics challenges, say, before the election

Nancy Pelosi pushes the guy for majority leader and suddenly--boom!--he's on the front page of The Washington Post as being ethically challenged. The New York Times mentions it as well.

And I'm wondering why, if this is a valid news story--the peg is some watchdog groups criticizing the Pennsylvania congressman on the eve of the House leadership vote--I didn't get to read about it earlier. Instead, the stories were written in an "everyone knows this" tone.

I know, because I've been around for awhile, that Murtha was caught up in Abscam, but that was 26 years ago, and besides, he was never charged. (Though it was kind of creepy to see the grainy videotape again on "NBC Nightly News," with Murtha saying to a bribe offer: "I'm not interested--at this point. We do business for awhile, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't.")

And that's the WaPo media critic (to be fair, Kurtz’s news beat has generated many thoughtful articles suspicious of bias).

Over on the Editorial Page, Ruth Marcus takes off the gloves (I expect it makes it easier to type).

"The Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," Pelosi pledged on election night. Five days later she wrote Murtha a letter endorsing his bid to become her No. 2.

Not the most promising start.

For years Murtha has relied on the Abscam bottom line to argue that the case is not a problem for him: He wasn't indicted. But he was named a co-conspirator in the bribery scheme. The feckless House ethics committee didn't take action against him, though the outside investigator it hired quit in disgust after the panel rejected his recommendation to file misconduct charges.

A portentous start to the "most ethical Congress in history."

110th Congress Posted by jk at November 15, 2006 4:04 PM