Congressman and Blood Libel Purveyor John Murtha Dead at Age 77

The Pennsylvania Democrat who became the first Vietnam Veteran elected to Congress was suffering complications from earlier gallbladder surgery. After more than 30 years as a US Representative, he passed away at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va today.

Already, misleading headline such as US Representative Murtha, Supporter of Troops, Dies at Age 77 or Pa. Dem Murtha Remembered as Military Advocate are circulating. I'm sorry, but selling out young Marines to get in good with Code Pink and the kook fringe of the anti-war American left negates whatever good he might've done as a representative.

Not surprisingly, many mainstream media outlets sugar-coated his 2006 blood libel of US Marines in Haditha, Iraq as 'being an outspoken critic of the Iraq War'. In their Sy Hersh-like urgency to find My Lai: The Next Generation in Iraq, TIME described a skirmish between United States Marines and insurgents outside the village of Haditha as a 'massacre' that left 24 Iraqis and one Marine dead. In May 2006, Congressman Murtha went on national TV and announced that the Marines involved were guilty of 'cold-blooded murder' before any official investigation or judicial procedures were concluded. All charges against the accused Marines were eventually dropped. One of the Marines- Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt- filed a slander suit against Murtha in September 2008.

Murtha was also known as an unindicted co-conspirator in the FBI's 1980 'Abscam' sting in which FBI agents posed as officials and businessmen from the Middle East, soliciting political favors in exchange for money.

More recently, the FBI raided the offices of a defense contractor in Murtha's district in January 2009. Murtha had provided the company with millions of dollars worth of earmarks to Winber, PA-based Kuchera Defense Systems. The company was being investigated by the FBI, Department of Defense and IRS Criminal Division over whether or not it was falsifying the number of employees working on projects to secure additional funding as well as skirting campaign contribution laws while regularly donating to Murtha's campaign.