If I am corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district…

Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

There are those who say that John Murtha’s mastery of the federal budget process has made the slab-faced Pennsylvania Democrat the posterboy for the need to overhaul the earmark process that delivers federal money to Congressional districts across the country and goes some way towards ensuring that, absent the proverbial presence of a dead girl or a live boy, it’s exceedingly difficult to defeat a sitting member. Murtha has brought billions of dollars of bacon back to his Johnstown constituency and become a hate-figure for reform-minded good-government types. Not that the Congressman gives a damn:

“If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district” Mr. Murtha said. “My job as a member of Congress is to make sure that we take care of what we see is necessary. Not the bureaucrats who are unelected over there in whatever White House, whether it’s Republican or Democrat. Those bureaucrats would like to control everything.