A fine column!
Dear Editor:
Re: When Rhetoric Clashes with Reality:
The Press works to Spin 403 - 3 House Vote
A fine column! I note a couple of item:
“The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress,
is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the
earliest practicable date.” - Murtha’s resolution says “hereby terminated”,
which means immediately upon the passage of the resolution. Also, in his
press conference about his resolution, Murtha used “immediate withdrawal” at
least twice (I think the New York Times has a transcript of the presser).
He didn’t start using “6 months” until the blowback began.
The other interesting item is that in 1993, Rep. Murtha publicly called on
Pres. Clinton to withdraw from Somalia after our debacle there. Clinton
did, of course. During a 1998 interview with ABC (or NBC?) News, Osama bin
Laden said that our running from Somalia convinced him the USA was a paper
tiger and emboldened him to press forward.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for the US media to report any of that, but
thank you for your efforts.
Regards,
Mary McLemore
Pike Road, Alabama, USA
