Murtha v. Murtha

The guy's a walking contradiction, but that doesn't stop the big media outlets from touting the guy as a former hawk who's come out against the war. He contradicted himself at least twice on the conditions and situation in Iraq during this past Sunday's talk shows, and yet he's getting more press than Sen. Lieberman who has consistently backed the current US approach in Iraq.

Doesn't anyone at the big media outlets do any factchecking these days to sort out the contradictions and point them out to the viewers? An example:

[T]here's a civil war going. We're caught in between a civil war right now. Our troops are the targets of the civil war. They're the only people that could have unified the various factions in Iraq. And they're unified against us. --ABC's This Week, 12/4/05

[W]hy should I believe what the CIA says about what's happening in Iraq, that there's going to be a civil war? First of all, al Qaeda was wrong. It was wrong on the nuclear stuff. It was wrong on everything they have said over there. So why should I believe that there's going to be a civil war? -- same show, a few moments later.

Rep. Murtha isn't helping his own cause when he sounds more like Sen. John Kerry with each passing day. We know how that ended up for Kerry. Murtha may have had a principled change of heart against the war, but his message has been so muddled by his own deeds - and the political calculations of those within his political party.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lieberman's positive comments about the situation in Iraq are getting under the collar of others. Someone put the bug in the ear of former Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker to run against Lieberman in 2006:

When you've become the president's best friend on the war in Iraq, you should not be in office, especially if you're in the opposing party," Mr. Weicker, 74, said in a phone interview from his home in Essex, Conn. "I'm going to do everything I can to see that Joe Lieberman does not get a free pass."

He said that Mr. Lieberman, a Democrat, currently had no challengers, either from within his party or from Republicans, in his campaign for a fourth term. Mr. Weicker said he believed that no Republican would challenge Mr. Lieberman on the war.

"If he's out there scot-free and nobody will do it, I'd have to give serious thought to doing it myself, and I don't want to do it," added Mr. Weicker, an independent, who said he had been opposed to the war from the beginning.

The thought that a Democrat would actually stand by their principles and agree with the Bush Administration over Iraq was insufficient to get significant press in the first place, but now that someone may challenge Lieberman over his position on the war is sufficient to get the Times to run an article about Weicker's consideration of throwing down the gauntlet? Curious.

UPDATE:
Also noting the Murtha flip-flops: Down and Dirty (an ABC blog), USS Neverdock

UPDATE:
Those noting the mismatch in coverage between Murtha and Lieberman, plus Dean's outburst (the latest one): Howie at the Jawa Report, Dr. Sanity, and California Yankee.

UPDATE:
Further sites with updated information on the Democratic party disarray (often a one man wrecking crew - see Murtha, or Dean, or Kerry): Just One Minute, AJ Strata, The Heretik, and others (updated as needed). Tigerhawk comments that [Murtha's] at war with himself and to all appearances he's losing a fight against an unarmed opponent. That's harsh, but an objective reading of his comments shows the problems with trying to have it both ways on the war. Middle Earth Journal thinks that Lieberman may be in trouble if Weicker is considering a run. I think that's a long shot.

UPDATE:
Euphoric Reality notes Deano's commentary on the war and how that doesn't quite jibe with the facts on the ground. Baldilocks has more.... UPDATED and so does Ma Deuce.