Dumb Schmidt

"The unfortunate thing about all of that is that her choice of words on the floor of the House... Unfortunately, they came out wrong. There was no discussion of him [Murtha] personally being a coward or about any person being a coward." VA State Representative Danny Bubp

Talk about an unfair fight.

On one side we have John Murtha, a high ranking US Congressman for over 30 years, a 37 year veteran of the Marine Corps who received the Bronze Star, two purple hearts, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, and has been singled out for more local, national, military and service awards than seems humanly possible.

On the other side is Jean Schmidt, a freshman Congresswoman and former teacher who's been in office for barely 90 days and has an embarrassingly thin political resume with two job listings -- state representative for 3 years, township (of 34,000 people) Trustee for 10. First thing I want to know: How did this woman get elected to Congress?

The next thing I want to know is the real back story. Jean Schmidt committed an appalling act of egregiously bad judgment in her public attack on Murtha. She says she was quoting Danny Buhp. He says she wasn't. Why hasn't it occurred to anybody that she was merely a pawn whose mission backfired?

I think Schmidt was in fact quoting Danny Bubp accurately. Bubp has served in the Marine Corps Reserve for 27 years and is now a colonel. He's also a Republican power broker in Schmidt's home state of Ohio, where Schmidt is already running for reelection. He would know the phrase, "Cowards cut and run, Marines never do." Would naive, sheltered teacher and homemaker-turned-congresswoman Jean Schmidt know those words? Not bloody likely.

Impassioned supporters and detractors of the war in Iraq abound in political circles. When prominent congressional hawk John Murtha did an about face and came out against the war, he ticked off a lot of people, including, logically, Danny Buhp. Who then pointed Schmidt at Murtha -- and turned her into a suicide bomber.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Mrs. Schmidt's actions. I'm just pointing out that a woman who says what she learned from the whole mess was "Not to wear the red dress" isn't nearly smart enough to have come up with the attack in the first place.