I used to think..

John Murtha was unpatriotic. I was wrong.

There's absolutely no need to call someone's patriotism into question just because they don't believe leaving Iraq will be an unparalleled disaster. He spent many years serving the nation in the Marine Corps, which tops anything I've done. So I apologize.

But based on this exchange:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: I want to get back to my first question, but let me pick up on something you said just there. You believe that these homegrown terrorist plots are being inspired by the U.S. work in Iraq right now?

JOHN MURTHA, CONGRESSMAN: Absolutely. George, they were inspired by them all over the world. Our presence in Iraq, our occupation in Iraq, gives these people the inspiration. Now, we didn’t have this problem before, they came from Afghanistan. But, now we even have it in the United States. So, I’m absolutely convinced that this is the kind of thing that inspires these people.

No, instead I've come to the conclusion that he's a hopelessly ignorant buffoon. Apparently there's no handy 12 year old available to help him navigate them new-fangled inter-tubes to look up some history .

Seriously, a Congressmen should know better. It's obvious to any moron that leaving Iraq in a mess would not be helpful to our long term interests and might actually cause more of that "blow back" Ron Paul likes to talk about when compared to anything that has occurred to date. So, we're left to believe his comments are politically driven or that he's really just a barking moonbat idiot. Or both.

Of all people George Stephanapolous should have aggressively challenged him based on the number of attacks that occurred during his former boss's watch. Let's not forget that Bill Clinton "came closer than anyone" to killing bin Laden, a man who wrote a fatwa in 1998 about how the US-led sanctions against the Iraqi people were justification for killing Americans anywhere and everywhere.

CALMER 6/3/07

Sorry, that was a little emotional. It happens. Here's how a professional blogger might tell the same story, including a zinger about Murtha's Afghanistan logic. Let me say clearly what I didn't above--Murtha has no business being anywhere near a leadership position with such an intellectually lazy thought process.

MORE 6/4/07

Perhaps Murtha should have considered the words of one of the plotters when he worked at JFK. Seems one of them wanted to "get those bastards" (ie, Americans) at some point in the past. Why? Because we invaded Iraq and deposed Hussein? No.

Evidently it was because he saw missiles being shipped through JFK to Israel and he figured they would end up in the throats of Muslim terrorists. The man is a Shiite--he probably applauded our invasion of Iraq.

What about the headlines of the attack possibly surpassing 9/11 in ferocity? Sounds a bit too sensationalistic unless they had discovered a way to include the airport terminal in their fuel farm blast. Pretty complex stuff.

A few liberals predictably mocked the timing, the motive, the suspects, et al, which the Anchoress hilariously took apart like a Lego toy. But there are good reasons for the news conferences. It's important to send a message to the bad guys that we're watching and maybe induce some paranoia throughout their organizations.

Back in 1993 a ragtag group of would-be terrorists loyal to Blind Shiekh Abdul Rahman were looking for something to blow up but it wasn't until a master terrorist inserted himself (or was inserted) on the scene that things began to happen. The plot by "Rashid the Iraqi" would almost certainly have been worse than 9/11 had it been successful but without him it's unlikely the locals would have done much. The JFK group was a Shiite pack but Hizballah is no slouch when it comes to master terrorists and bomb-makers.