[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 3, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E294-E295]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      IN TRIBUTE TO REPRESENTATIVE JOHN P. MURTHA OF PENNSYLVANIA

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. JOHN B. LARSON

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 24, 2010

  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor my 
great friend and our dear colleague, John Murtha. America has lost a 
true hero and patriot and the United States Congress has lost a giant. 
Madam Speaker, I submit for the record Keith Burris' column from the 
Journal Inquirer. The Journal Inquirer is a newspaper serving my home 
district and is the hometown voice of northern central Connecticut. 
Keith's words capture the essence of John Murtha, and I ask my 
colleagues to join with me in honoring the life of this humble man, 
dear friend and great American.

               [From the Journal Inquirer, Feb. 13, 2010]

                                Much Man

                          (By Keith C. Burris)

       In roughly 30 years in journalism I have met many 
     politicians. In the beginning, this was exciting. But after a 
     while, you realize that most of them are persons of 
     exceptional ambition, not exceptional conviction, skill, or 
     patriotism. Most people in politics are not very interesting.
       But a couple years ago, U.S. Rep. John Larson, himself an 
     exception to the rule, brought to the Journal Inquirer Rep. 
     John Murtha, of Pennsylvania. Murtha's back and forth with 
     editors and reporters here made for one of the most 
     fascinating hours of conversation I can remember.

[[Page E295]]

       Murtha died this week at 77, of a medical mistake.
       There aren't many like him in Congress. There never were.
       First of all, Murtha, an ex-Marine officer, was not the 
     sort of fellow who needed a ``handler'' or a ``focus group'' 
     to calculate the political tides. Instead he used three 
     ancient tools--study, his mind, and his conscience.
       As a fine essay, reprinted from Politico on these pages, 
     documented, Murtha was famous for the Washington rituals he 
     did not observe. When asked a question, he answered it. He 
     did not hang with lobbyists or flacks. He did not go to 
     parties, but got up early and went to bed early. (According 
     to Politico, he would sometimes go home in the afternoon to 
     listen to the BBC to get a fresh slant on U.S. foreign 
     policy.) He did not court TV people or the Washington Post, 
     and didn't particularly know or care who those people were.
       And he didn't back down.
       He wasn't always right. And he knew that. He had the 
     courage to change his mind.
       But he was, as the saying goes, a ``stand-up guy.'' You 
     could not blow him down with a poll or a David Broder column.
       Murtha had the understated self-confidence that the rare 
     greats in politics have. I met Mike Mansfield, briefly, once, 
     and you felt it from him. Ditto John Stennis. I am sure that 
     Eisenhower had it. And maybe Ella Grasso. I know I have seen 
     and felt it in the presence of Eugene McCarthy, Ernest 
     Hollings, and John Glenn. Some public men seem to shed their 
     vanity as the years accumulate and they settle into their 
     work. They begin to internalize their love of country. 
     Instead of politics being more and more about them, it 
     becomes more and more about service. And they go about their 
     work with concentration and power, but minimal fuss. You felt 
     that with Murtha. There was no posturing in the man. He 
     looked you dead in the eye and he told you what he thought 
     was true and needed doing.
       Murtha was much in the news when he came to see us. He was 
     known as the military's greatest friend in Congress and he 
     had just come out for withdrawal from Iraq. I recall him as a 
     big man in a dark blue suit. His hands were the hands of a 
     working man. He might have been a machinist or a farmer 
     instead of a soldier and statesman. Someone here snickered 
     the other day that western Pennsylvania, from whence Murtha 
     came, was ``not really Pennsylvania, but Ohio.'' It's true in 
     the sense that Murtha was from a hardscrabble world where 
     people are still close to land and labor and where hard work 
     and professionalism are what matter, not pretense, not 
     birthright, not wealth or college degrees. It does not matter 
     if you have a family name and an MBA from Harvard. If you 
     want to invade Iraq, you better study the history of Iraq.
       Yeah, Murtha was against abortion and for the Second 
     Amendment and he was born in West Virginia and he owned a car 
     wash before he got into politics. But that old Vietnam 
     veteran could set Condoleezza Rice's head spinning and he 
     took no guff from right-wing no-nothings. If we had 50 
     ``Ohioans'' like John Murtha in the House we would have 
     health-insurance reform today.
       Murtha liked fellow pros. But pros who were rooted in 
     something. He got on well with the first George Bush and not 
     at all with the second. He thought Donald Rumsfeld was nuts 
     and Robert Gates a great man. He was a protege of Tip 
     O'Neill's and practiced O'Neill's adage that all politics is 
     local (Murtha never got over the old and honorable idea that 
     a congressman's first job is to provide for his 
     constituents), but Murtha trusted Rahm Emanuel about as far 
     as he could throw him.
       Murtha spent his spare time visiting wounded soldiers at 
     Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed. He did not take 
     cameramen with him. When he traveled to Iraq, it was not a 
     junket or a photo-op. He would tell the generals and 
     ambassadors, ``no PowerPoint,'' none of that stuff. Just talk 
     to me, he would say, and tell me what is going on. And then 
     he would go visit with the sergeants and the specialists. He 
     took Larson under his wing, and to Iraq, early in Larson's 
     congressional career because ``he goes home at the end of the 
     day and studies the CIA briefing books.''
       Murtha did not love the military as a concept, but as 
     people. Public servants like himself. His work for them in 
     Congress was like his work for the citizens of the 12th 
     District of Pennsylvania. He had a job to do. He was supposed 
     to take care of his people.
       He was much man, John Murtha.
       What a loss to the Congress and the country.

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