News-Record.com

Ah, how history will judge US.

Interesting. Well, good to know that for history to exist there has to be a record of it.

As it is in the mainstream media, the current "history" of how we're being treated sure isn't being documented.

A few years ago when the space shuttle Columbia blew up on reentry and its crew tragically lost, a Muslim cleric in London celebrated. Stop me if you’ve heard this. He was a happy man, our cleric, and praised Allah because not only had several Christian Americans perished on that day, but a despised Jew (Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon) and a hated Hindu (Kalpana Chawla) were also incinerated. Yes, members of the reviled Big Three, all dead in one momentous event. Happy, happy. Joy, joy. Remember that cheery cleric? Didn’t hear about him? Hmm.

Just over a year ago in Kashmir an apartment building was forcibly emptied, the residents were lined up, sorted by religion and all the Hindus were murdered. Did you hear that on the network news? Really? But is there any doubt who did the killing?

And how about this one. A year ago, in southern Thailand, an entire village was wiped out by Islamic terrorists “demanding an Islamic state”. Villagers butchered, houses burned to the ground. Gone in a day. Did you hear about that? Figures.

If you spend a good long time Googling, hunting and Lexis-Nexising you will probably find mention of the stories above, but chances are it will be far easier to find Gold Star Moms, columnists and editorials claiming that current waves of terrorism have been brought on by “Bush’s immoral war”, our “Israeli policies” or general “American warmongering”. You’ll hear everyday from Joe Biden and Chris Matthews that the terrorist are being created by the president’s unilateral, go-it-alone policy of trading the lives and limbs of our brave, young men for oil.

If you believe anything except that the entire non-Islamic population of the planet is living under a bull’s-eye next to a ticking clock…you’re just not informed. But I can’t really blame you.

And so "history" is written.

Thanks Lex for the history lesson.

jim, you lived a scared life.

Not scared enough...

How about this for a little more history that I'm sure no one here has heard of.

Jack Murtha -- quoted nearly every day on how he was a "hawk" that is now against the Iraqi was -- was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal. Really, you say? No way!

Well, way..

So, what was Abscam?

A sting operation hatched by the FBI in the late 1970s, Abscam had undercover agents offering bribes to senators, congressmen, and local politicians in return for official services on behalf of fictional Arab sheiks. After Abscam became public in 1980, six congressmen and one senator were convicted of bribery and conspiracy.

Murtha refused to take the money, but his reason was hardly noble.

Here is the exchange between Murtha and the agents:

Murtha: "I want to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions at all, period.... After we've done some business, well, then I might change my mind...."

... "I'm going to tell you this. If anybody can do it - I'm not B.S.-ing you fellows - I can get it done my way." he boasted. "There's no question about it."...

Here on secret videotape was this all-American hero, tall and dignified in a disheveled way, explaining why he wasn't quite ready to accept the $50,000.

"All at once," he said, "some dumb [expletive deleted] would go start talking eight years from now about this whole thing and say [expletive deleted], this happened. Then in order to get immunity so he doesn't go to jail, he starts talking and fingering people. So the [S.O.B.] falls apart."...

"You give us the banks where you want the money deposited," offered one of the bagmen.

"All right," agreed Murtha. "How much money we talking about?"

"Well, you tell me."

"Well, let me find out what is a reasonable figure that will get their attention," said Murtha, "because there are a couple of banks that have really done me some favors in the past, and I'd like to put some money in....["]

In the following exchange with an undercover agent, Murtha leaves the door open for later negotiations:

Amoroso: Let me ask you now that we're together. I was under the impression, OK, and I told Howard [middleman Howard Criden] what we were willing to pay, and I went out, I got the $50,000. OK? So what you're telling me, OK, you're telling me that that's not what you know....

Murtha: I'm not interested.

Amoroso: OK.

Murtha: At this point, you know, we do business together for a while. Maybe I'll be interested and maybe I won't.... Right now, I'm not interested in those other things. Now, I won't say that some day, you know, I, if you made an offer, it may be I would change my mind some day.

So, Murtha WANTS to do this, but decides not to because he's merely afriad he would get caught -- and he certainly doesn't rule out doing it in the future.

Wow. History. Interesting stuff -- if the right people decide what you get to hear.

By the way, here is the FULL 54-minute undercover tape of Murtha. Great TV:

Murtha's abscam role

jim, you live an off-topic life.

Jim, Murtha also had his own chapter, if I recall correctly, in "Adventures in Porkland," the definitive account of how pork-barrel works at the federal level. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that before, either here or at my personal blog. (Go read the book, by the way; it's both educational and entertaining.)

But I fail to see what that has to do with the fact that our Congress has decided America can live without some legal principles that have been cherished since the time of Henry II. Or was Murtha involved in some scam back then, too?

sunlight == best of disinfectants

test, jscript off, j off, preview first

Success! (For other readers, Anna has been running into technical problems when trying to comment, and apparently she finally has hit on the magic combination.)