Michael Crowley writes:
He led all three evening news broadcasts, I'm told. One Democrat I
spoke to particularly reveled in the way ABC juxtaposed footage of an
angry Dick Cheney wearing a tuxedo (during his Wednesday night Iraq
speech) and Murtha, who looked and sounded for all the world like an
idyllic awesome-grandpa--the kind of character who would do the right
thing and save the day at the end of an old black-and-white movie. (ABC
even aired an extended excerpt from Murtha's press conference in which
he spoke of trying to get a Purple Heart for a soldier who'd lost his
hands and been blinded. "If you don't give him a Purple Heart," Murtha
recalled saying, as he choked up, "I'll give him one of mine.") In
public relations terms, that's not even a fair fight. And such is the
stuff that shapes public opinion.
Right on. There's a reason Murtha matters, and it's not just because he's a hawk. Murtha's a crusty old, blue-collarish Democrat. He's an everyman: patriotic, plain-spoken, and clear-eyed. His turn is being used as a synecdoche for the larger shift in American public opinion because, unlike Russ Feingold or Maxine Waters, Murtha fits the weird, specific media conception of an American.
