Defending Schmidt

Representative Jean Schmidt has taken a lot of heat, and has become the newest “cut and run” crew talking point, for her comments Friday night. In the midst of the House debate, the freshman legislator recounted a phone call she had received from a Colonel in the US Marine Corps:

“He asked me to send Congress a message: stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do,” Schmidt said.

That one statement caused sheer bedlam, not only in Congress that night, but elsewhere on the Net. Even those in favor of the war, such as David Adesnik who called her statement “Red-baiting” and “disgusting” and Professor Stephen Bainbridge who likened her statement to “personal vitriol” and “hate”, piled on Schmidt.

Her critics are dead wrong, though. Schmidt didn’t called Murtha a coward. In fact, no one called Murtha a coward.

In the first place, Schmidt was doing her job. As a Representative, it is her job…well…to represent. It is her job to give her constituents a voice on Congress, to amplify what they have to say and that’s exactly what she did. The unnamed Marine Colonel asked his Representative to take his words to the floor of Congress and she did. She did what she is paid very well to do. Period.

Second, what the Marine Colonel said was not an insult. It was a rebuke. It was one Marine reminding another Marine of what it means to be a Marine. One can forgive Congressman Murtha for forgetting the “Retreat? Hell!!” creed of the US Marine Corps. He had not been in active service for many years – in fact, he’s been a member of Congress for three decades. It is not the way of the Marines to be subtle nor gentle with one of their own. They are made of stern stuff and no one knows that better than a fellow Marine. I imagine that when the Colonel heard what Murtha said, and had been saying for the past year, he felt that an admonition was warranted. His statement to Murtha was simple: Remember what you are and are not. He reminded Murtha that he is a US Marine and that Marines do not follow the path of the coward. It was not an insult. It was not an accusation. It was a reminder from a Marine on the battlefront to a Marine who should remember that he once served on the battlefront also.

Unfortunately, Murtha’s fellow Democrats decided that such a reminder was not fit for the floor of the House. They shouted and, in one case, physically intimidated Representative Schmidt until she withdrew the Colonel’s statement from the record. They stifled the speech of an American soldier in the middle of a war.

That, folks, is disgusting.

No related posts.

Category: Fighting the Islamists