John Murtha’s Entire Speech

Here it is. One excerpt from the Q & A:

Q The president and the vice president are both saying it is now irresponsible for Democrats to criticize the war and to criticize the intelligence going into the war because everybody was looking at the same intelligence.

REP. MURTHA: I like guys who’ve never been there to criticize us who’ve been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there, and send people to war, and then don’t like to hear suggestions about what need(s) to be done. I resent the fact on Veterans Day he criticized Democrats for criticizing them.

This is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion! The American public knows it. And lashing out at critics doesn’t help a bit. You got to change the policy. That’s what’s going to help with the American people. We need to change direction. The troops — what hurts the troops are the things that I listed before.

Here’s the White House’s reaction:

“It is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party.”

And Here is Moore’s reaction to that:

Unfortunately, the President doesn’t understand that it is mainstream middle America who has turned against him and his immoral war and that it is I and the Democrats who represent the mainstream. It is Mr. Bush who is the extremist.

And here is what John Kerry said:

“I won’t stand for the ‘swift boating’ of Jack Murtha,” Kerry said in a statement. “It disgusts me that a bunch of guys who have never put on the uniform of their country venomously turn their guns on a Marine who came home from Vietnam with a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.”