Even news junkie that I am, I didn't catch John Murtha on Nightline in mid-2004, telling Ted Koppel, "It goes back to the planning from the very start, and this is the thing: we don't have enough people to complete this mission satisfactorily." However, tonight John Donvan returns to give John Murtha a second pass at the Nightline spotlight, now that the rest of the country is paying attention, and add the administration's early lack of response and later overreaction to the story.
[By the way, I join the people of West Virginia in hoping that somehow those coal miners are safe and that they can hold out until they are rescued. However, since I know about as much about coal mining as I do about 13th-century Romanian poetry, I will shut up about it now.]
Here is one of the top quotes, but check out the whole Murtha interview if you possibly can.
The difference between the first Bush administration and the second Bush administration is dramatic. I've talked to Republican Senators who say that Clinton talked to them more than Bush does. President Bush I had us over to the White House continuously, he'd listen to criticism, he'd listen to suggestions, and he took some suggestions, but he did what he thought was right. I don't know where this President gets his information, but obviously he's gotten an awful lot of bad information, and he hasn't vetted it against experienced people. I think they just operate differently. I've heard Republicans say they just ignore Congress completely. Congress is a hindrance to them. They don't need to pay attention to Congress. Now Congress is beginning to recognize they have oversight responsibilities, and many of the Republican members are recognizing that something has to be done about this."We do not expand freedom abroad, by abandoning it at home." The quote is from Edward R. Murrow, but Nightline is doing some Murrow-class journalism.
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