Murtha/Obey v. Rumsfeld/Boehner

Posted by David DeGraw at 12:22 AM on September 14, 2006.

With the midterm elections just under two months away the political maneuvering and rhetoric has reached a fever pitch.

As reported earlier, Jack Murtha (D-PA) introduced a resolution calling for Rumsfeld's resignation:

"It is the sense of the Congress that, for the good of the country, the United States of America must restore credibility both at home and abroad and that the first step toward restoring that credibility must be to demonstrate accountability for the mistakes that have been made in prosecuting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by immediately effecting the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld…" [Read more here]

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) responded to Murtha's resolution by saying that "Democrats are confused about who the enemy actually is."

Hassert's comments came on the heels of House Majority Leader John Boehner's (R-OH) recent statement saying:

"I listen to my Democrat friends, and I wonder if they're more interested in protecting terrorists than in protecting the American people."

In response to Boehner's rhetoric, David Obey (D-WI) came back with a strong statement of his own:

"I come from the state of Joe McCarthy. I know a 1st rate McCarthy when I see one. And I also know a 3rd rate McCarthy when I see one. And we saw one yesterday."

In the first (top) video clip we feature Countdown's coverage of all this with brief comments from Murtha and Obey.

In the second (bottom) video we feature CNN's coverage with a three minute Murtha interview. For those of you keeping score at home, Murtha once again mentioned the possibility of a military draft. This time he says that we either to have to redeploy the troops or reinstate the draft - one or the other.

David DeGraw is AlterNet's video blogger.