RUSH: Jack Murtha alert, big news, ladies and gentlemen: ‘A military judge has dismissed charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis. Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges Tuesday against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after defense attorneys raised concerns that a four-star general overseeing the prosecution was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha. The charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled, but Folsom excluded Marine Forces Central Command from future involvement. Chessani was the highest-ranking officer implicated in the case.’ Here’s why this is big. From the moment television news started running pictures of this, the Democrats in Congress — led by Jack Murtha and echoed by no less than Senator Kennedy — gleefully, joyously, happily picked up the refrain that our military was rapists, murderers, uncontrolled criminals.
They then said, ‘We have compassion for them. We understand that the failed Bush policies and our continual rotation of deployment is causing untold stress. But we still need to punish these people!’ Murtha had no facts. He proclaimed all of these Marines guilty, in the process demoralizing the US military and lying to the American public. The Drive-By Media — predisposed to also sanction defeat for the United States and for our military in Iraq — happily, joyfully picked up the refrain and started running stories about how these Marines were nothing but rapists and murderers. And that was the picture that was allowed even before any trial had begun, even before any evidence had been presented. Murtha didn’t call anybody. He relied on news reports, pure and simple, because it fit the template. It fit the narrative. Once again, we have an example of the unpatriotic behavior of elected Democrats in power positions in the House and the Senate: eagerly, joyfully doing whatever they could to impugn, falsely accuse, and pile on a bunch of charges which have turned out to be false. Murtha, Kennedy, and all the others that piled on here owe all of these people and the people of the United States of America the US Marine Corps an apology on public television with everybody knowing that it’s coming, so as many people as possible can watch this. No less than a public apology will suffice. It won’t happen, but this is who your modern-day Democrats are.