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.