PA Congressmen in the WSJ

Two Pennsylvania Congressmen showed up in the Wall Street Journal this week. There may have been others. If so, I missed them.

Rep. John Murtha (D-12) has an entire article to himself: “Murtha Seeks Limits on Plan to Increase Iraq Forces,” by David Rodgers (1/09). Here is one paragraph:

But Mr. Murtha believes the November election results show voters want Congress to be more of a check on Mr. Bush’s handling of Iraq. And as chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee charged with the Iraq funding bill, his goal is [to] build bipartisan support by making a public case and forcing a debate on whether increasing troop levels would be too much of a strain on the military.

The article discusses his strategy in some detail.

On Friday the 12^th, another article on Iraq, “Bush Bets Congress Will Have to Back Plan,” by Yoshi J. Dreazen and Neil King, Jr., ends with these two paragraphs:

Indeed, several of the newly elected Democrats who had made the war a central part of their campaigns stopped short of placing restrictions on troop levels. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said such language could be part of future spending legislation, but some Democrats said they were not yet prepared to back such a measure.

“We’re not at that point yet,” said Rep. Patrick Murphy, a Pennsylvania Democrat and Iraq veteran.