Republican activists take aim at Murtha reelection bid

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. -- His depiction in the recruiting flyer mailed to members of the American Legion leaves little room for interpretation: congressman John Murtha, scowling and wrinkled, juxtaposed against the now-famous image of a young John Kerry testifying before Congress in 1971 about alleged US atrocities committed in Vietnam.

Murtha, a 16-term Democrat, made ``despicable" comments about Marines suspected of killing nearly two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha, according to the four-page handout. Therefore, the flyer states, Murtha is no longer fit to serve in Washington.

The flyer, seeking veterans to help work against Murtha's reelection, is part of a ``Boot Murtha" campaign launched this week by Vets for the Truth, a pro-Republican activist group that supports the Iraq war. The group wants Murtha, a former Marine colonel who served in Vietnam, defeated for his blunt criticism of the war and his call to withdraw US troops.

Some of the group's members, however, were part of a similar campaign against Kerry during his 2004 Democratic presidential campaign against President Bush. Calling themselves Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, they boldly attacked the Massachusetts senator, accusing him of lying about his combat record in Vietnam and condemning him for claiming to have seen US troops commit war crimes while he was there.

``I called my buddies in the anti-Kerry movement from 2004," said Larry Bailey , a former Navy officer and Vietnam veteran who runs Vets for the Truth and who worked closely with Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, which included some who served with Kerry.

Standing in front of the Cambria County, Pa., Republican headquarters on Thursday -- across the street from Murtha's district office -- Bailey vowed to hurt Murtha's campaign the same way his group helped sink Kerry's presidential bid two years ago. ``I will do my best to `Swift boat' John Murtha," he declared.

But this time, Murtha and his allies, including an irate Kerry, have planned a counterattack, ready to portray Bailey and his comrades as pawns of the White House and the Republican Party. With growing public doubts about the Iraq War, Murtha's allies hope to convince voters to see the group as political tools who lack basic credibility, and in the process, provide some belated vindication for Kerry.

``They are engaging in a pure political smear job," Kerry thundered in a telephone interview yesterday. ``They have no respect for open debate."

To them, Kerry said, honorable military service doesn't matter: ``If you don't have the [same] opinion of the president [they] are going to tarnish your reputation. I think they are a disgrace and we will challenge them every time they raise their head, from one end of the country to the other."

``This is classic Karl Rove," said former Democratic senator Max Cleland of Georgia, who lost three limbs in Vietnam and lost his reelection bid in 2002 after similar attacks on his military service record. He believes Rove, the president's chief political strategist, helped orchestrate the campaign that cost him his office, and ``they are staying the course on the dirty tricks."

Bailey hopes the Boot Murtha campaign will convince voters in the conservative bastion of rural Pennsylvania to turn against Murtha, who has received little Republican opposition in his 32 years in the House.

Pennsylvania's 12th district, which Murtha represents, stretches from the middle of the state to the Ohio border in the west. Encompassing suburbs as well as rural areas, political analysts say, the district could be a microcosm of national attitudes toward the Iraq War.

The district leans more than two-to-one in favor of Democrats, but most are socially conservative ``Reagan Democrats": voters who oppose abortion rights, support gun ownership and the military, and want Congress to pass tighter immigration laws. In 2004, Kerry took the district with 51 percent of the vote to Bush's 49 percent.

``This is a very different congressional campaign," Diana Irey , a Washington County commissioner and Murtha's GOP challenger, said Thursday in her Monongahela, Pa., campaign office. Her headquarters are just down the road from where Appalachian settlers launched the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 to protest government taxes.

``The war issue has people's attention," she said. ``When I talk to people in the district the war usually comes up."

While she distanced herself from Bailey and the Vets for the Truth, Irey said attacking Murtha's remarks about the Iraq war is part of her campaign strategy.

``I am not questioning his military record or anything about his service," she said. ``I am focusing on his comments on the Iraq war and his voting record since he's been in Congress."

But the veterans who want Murtha defeated hope to influence congressional races nationwide, helping depict Democrats' push for withdrawal from Iraq as a slap in the face to US troops.

``It is getting the attention of citizens around the country," said Irey. As the controversy around Murtha makes headlines, she said, campaign contributions have come in from outside the district and across the country, and traffic to her website has spiked dramatically.

Indeed, some deep-pocketed military veterans from other states -- and well-heeled GOP contributors -- have helped fund and organize the Boot Murtha drive, including Lewis ``Jack" Peevy , a Georgia real estate developer and a retired Army colonel.

``It's not so much what Kerry did in [Vietnam] -- though his three purple hearts were for scratches -- but it was what he did when he came back home," Peevy told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August 2004, referring to Kerry's Congressional testimony about having witnessed US war crimes. ``He lied about my soldiers . . . What he told were bald-faced lies, and he has never apologized to us in the military."

Bailey said Peevy paid for plane tickets and other expenses to jump-start the anti-Murtha campaign, set to peak with a ``national rally" here scheduled for Oct. 1, about a month ahead of Election Day. The invited speakers include John O'Neil, who headed the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and wrote ``Unfit for Command," a scathing attack on Kerry's military record in Vietnam that was published during the 2004 campaign.

``I haven't made up my mind" whether to attend, O'Neil said in a telephone interview yesterday. He would not talk about Murtha but lauded Bailey, a former Navy SEAL, for his work against Kerry in 2004. ``They were opposed to Kerry and he was very involved in bringing out the truth."

To the Boot Murtha troops, the congressman's most disturbing moment -- which they liken to Kerry's alliance with actress Jane Fonda, derisively known as ``Hanoi Jane" for her protests against the Vietnam War -- was when ``Jihad Jack" accepted an award from Code Pink, a liberal anti war activist group that has staged protests at military hospitals treating wounded soldiers.

But Bailey and local veterans who turned out on Thursday were outraged by Murtha's comments in May, when he scolded the Marines under investigation for civilian casualties in Haditha. One of the Marines sued Murtha this week, alleging the congressman defamed him and members of his squad during a TV interview, charging that the men killed ``innocent civilians in cold blood" even though an investigation was still underway.

At Thursday's event in Johnstown, Lieutenant Colonel Craig Minnick , an Iraq veteran and Army reservist, said Murtha's remarks prompted him to work with Vets for the Truth this fall. Describing him as ``unpatriotic" and ``a traitor," Minnick said Murtha ``provides aid and comfort to our enemies and attacks the integrity of our forces."

But the Boot Murtha kickoff was far outnumbered by a loud, defiant counterdemonstration in support of the congressman. The demonstrators -- as well as Kerry and Cleland -- say they're ready to fight back against any GOP attacks on their war record or Democrats' national security credentials.

``We didn't fight strongly enough against the lies and innuendo" in 2004, Vietnam veteran Dick Class told Murtha supporters Thursday, many of them veterans themselves. ``Karl Rove's clone army is out there spreading lies [but] we're not going to take it anymore."

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.