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Not surprisingly, Murtha blatantly contradicted himself in his CNN appearance with Wolf Blitzer. As Dave points out, first Murtha said he didn't know money was being offered. Then he said, "they offered me the money, I said no." Did Wolf Blitzer call Murtha out on his explicit contradiction and likely fib? Of course not. Blitzer continued lobbing gentle questions with carefulness one would expect from an aging soft-ball coach.

Blitzer quickly went on to change the subject from Murtha's involvement in Abscam to the subject of why someone would bring this up at all. He then allowed Murtha to go on and criticize President Bush's handling of the Iraq War and comment on Bob Woodward's new book -- a story that dominated Blitzer's broadcast for the previous 45 minutes before the Murtha segment.

One thing Murtha mentioned did ring true, though. He cited politicians' underestimation of the American public. Well, Jack, as you said in the Abscam video: it's all about appearances, "public relations." Unfortunately Jack's greatest fear is coming true. As he said while being offered a $50,000 bribe, you've got to be careful, otherwise "the son of a bitch all falls apart...eight years from now." So he was off by 18 years!

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