Targeting Murtha

How exactly did Jack Murtha become a symbol of sleazy behavior?

Nancy Pelosi pushes the guy for majority leader and suddenly--boom!--he's on the front page of The Washington Post as being ethically challenged. The New York Times mentions it as well.

And I'm wondering why, if this is a valid news story--the peg is some watchdog groups criticizing the Pennsylvania congressman on the eve of the House leadership vote--I didn't get to read about it earlier. Instead, the stories were written in an "everyone knows this" tone.

I know, because I've been around for awhile, that Murtha was caught up in Abscam, but that was 26 years ago, and besides, he was never charged. (Though it was kind of creepy to see the grainy videotape again on "NBC Nightly News," with Murtha saying to a bribe offer: "I'm not interested--at this point. We do business for awhile, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't.")

When the former Marine declared that U.S. troops should be pulled out of Iraq and redeployed in the region, he garnered all kinds of coverage, but it was mostly about his then-controversial stance, not his ethics.

So here, according to yesterday's Post, is why there is a "furor" on the Hill over Murtha's possible ascension to the No. 2 job:

"At issue is Murtha's relationships with two defense lobbyists. Paul Magliocchetti of the PMA Group is a former aide to the lawmaker, and Robert 'Kit' Murtha is his brother and was a senior partner at KSA Consulting from 2002 to 2005.

"The PMA Group has become the go-to firm to approach Murtha as ranking Democrat on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, CREW [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington] charges. In the 2006 defense appropriations bill, PMA clients reaped at least 60 special provisions, or 'earmarks,' worth more than $95 million.

"The PMA Group and its clients have been top campaign contributors for Murtha: $274,649 in the 2006 campaign cycle, $236,799 in the 2004 cycle and $279,074 in the 2002 cycle, according to CREW's tallies." Murtha also helped a company that hired his brother's lobbying outfit win some grants and contracts.

Now this is pretty troubling, even if it's become par for the course on Capitol Hill. So why didn't the media jump on this earlier?

Turns out that the Los Angeles Times broke this story in exhaustive detail in June 2005, and it received almost no national pickup. Apparently the media didn't care about Murtha then.

The Post devoted one paragraph to Murtha and PMA in a story last March about a proposal for greater disclosure of lawmakers' contacts with lobbyists. The New York Times, to its credit, did a long piece in October about Murtha rewarding other Dems with pork, or punishing them, based on their votes, and got into some of the PMA stuff.