I had very little good to say about Rep. John Murtha while he was alive; he died yesterday, and I want to take a moment and remember that he was a person who deserves a bow of the head; he served his country and his district as well as he could.
We’re all in this together – all citizens of the same country – and no matter how much we oppose each other politically, it’s important to remember that.
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I do agree with the last sentence, but have a disagreement with the first paragraph. Murtha served his country and his district as well as he _chose._ And it served him, in turn.
I’ll add that Murtha wasn’t always wrong, or corrupt. If the USAF had listened to Murtha 2 years ago on the KC-X tanker buy, or at any time since, it would be in the process of fielding new aerial tankers under a dual-sourced contract, instead of hoping that a 50-year old fleet of KC-135s doesn’t encounter any malfunctions that would ground the whole USAF.