Transcript: Schmidt-Murtha Portion of Howard Kurtz’s “Reliable Sources” Interview

To see the video, go to Political Teen.

Kurtz interviewed Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, and Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post in the late morning of November 27. I transcribed the portion of the interview relevant to the Schmidt-Murtha situation.

At the 4:10 mark, Kurtz began to recount the events, and replayed most of the Schmidt video. That’s where the transcribing begins.
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Howard Kurtz: Glenn Reynolds, Colonel Danny Bubp, who the Congressman was quoting there, now tells the press that he was misquoted, that he never mentioned Murtha by name. So was the woman who has been nicknamed “Mean Jean” fairly or unfairly covered by the press in this instance?

Glenn Reynolds: Fairly… she showed the rhetorical skills that freshmen Congressmen are known for. On the other hand, John F. Kennedy wrote that political courage is a lot rarer than physical courage, and that was the topic of his “Profiles in Courage.”

We’re seeing very little political courage on the part of Democratic politicians. A lot of them supported the war early on because they thought it would be the politically smart thing to do.

Their antiwar fundraising base now is pushing the other way, and so they’re in essence making up this argument that they were fooled, which seems to me to be kind of a weak position. I mean “Vote for me, I’m gullible.”

But that’s basically been the effort to sort of pull back from the war, and I think the timing is quite inopportune. I think they’re going to regret it by the time the next election cycle rolls around…(couldn’t get last words).

HK: Let me come back to the coverage by asking Arianna Huffington-When Jack Murtha started to get beat up by critics because of his stance on the war, and it’s true that most, the vast majority, of the Democratic Party have not joined him in calling for a pullout, you had him blog on your site. How did that come about?

Arianna Huffington: Well I called his chief of staff last week, (she named him, I couldn’t understand her) 71 years old, has been with Murtha over 31 years. They were in the Marines together. And I talked to him about blogging, if he could convince the Congressman to blog. And it happened within a few hours.

And in his blog, he actually made a very important point, the Congressman, He asked for the White House, he asked for the President to call both sides to the White House to come up with a solution, to put aside partisan rancor and bring everybody into the White House. Let’s see if that’s going to happen.

HK: Let me jump in and ask you–the first place that I read that Colonel Bubp was very closely aligned with religious conservatives was on your site. I’m wondering if you think the Mainstream Media fell down on that part of the story?

AH: I think absolutely it did, and not only on that part of the story, which was in a blog by Max Blumenthal on The Huffington Post, but also the other part of the story. The Cincinnati Enquirer was the first to point out that Bubp had not actually asked the Congresswoman to name him (Murtha) by name or to call him a coward. It is suddenly all over the blogosphere in a way that could not be ignored by the Mainstream Media.

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Comments:

• I hope somebody sent OH02 and The Whistleblower a fresh supply of blood pressure pills, because Reynolds’ implication (and a bit more) that what Jean Schmidt did was an example of “political courage” will send them through the roof. My take, as noted earlier, is that this is how conservatives in The 2nd District see it. Again, my take-the more ridicule and over-the-top criticism gets piled on, the more that perception gets reinforced.
• OH02 will also not be pleased with Reynolds (remember, he’s a Libertarian, not a GOP hack), who portrays the Democrats as having the opposite of polical courage (which is ….. begins with a “c” ….. has nine letters ….. ends in “e” ….. first three letters are the same as a farm animal ….. last four are what you roll at the craps table in Vegas …..).
• I happen to think Reynolds’ take on what the House vote does to the Democrats in hurting them for 2006 is also dead-on.
• Murtha’s blog call for “let’s all get together” is absurd. As S.O.B. Alliance member Weapons of Mass Discussion pointed out, there has been evidence for well over a year that the Democrats actively planned to use any intelligence they learned of through the legistlative process to undermine the President politically. Besides, when did FDR hold such a meeting during WW2?
• The supposed “scoop” that Danny Bubp is a religious conservative is irrelevant to the story, and I find it extremely offensive that Arianna and others somehow consider it relevant. NixGuy picked up a strong whiff of this not-so-soft redneck-religious (dare we say it?) bigotry (yup, that’s what it is) early last week at another blog.
• The “he said, she said” part of the story is relevant, but in my view it has registered as a venial sin and not a mortal one inside The 2nd District. I’ve heard rumors that it goes beyond that, but no one has bellied up and said so. In my view, the opportunity to do that effectively has passed–if they came forward now, the most obvious question is “Why wait til now?”