John Murtha (D-PA) Dies of Complications from Surgery

[MKSheppard]

February 9, 2010
John P. Murtha Dies at 77; Ex-Marine Was Iraq War Critic in Congress
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON — Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a gruff ex-Marine who was one of the most hawkish Democrats in Congress but who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, died on Monday in Arlington, Va. He was 77.

He died while under treatment for complications of gallbladder surgery, his office said.

The first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress, Mr. Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize use of military force in Iraq. But he evolved into a leading foe of the war as it was conducted under the administration of President George W. Bush.

“The war in Iraq is not going as advertised,” Mr. Murtha said in November 2005, as he demanded an immediate withdrawal of American troops. He called the Iraq campaign “a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.”

Before speaking out on the war, Mr. Murtha was not much known outside Washington or his district in southwestern Pennsylvania. But he was alternately respected and feared by his colleagues, as he used his immense power on a military spending panel to funnel hundreds of millions of federal dollars into his hard-luck district, where prosperity had vanished with the decline of the coal and steel industries.

Mr. Murtha’s death came two days after he became the longest-serving congressman in Pennsylvania history, his office said, surpassing the record of Joseph M. McDade.

First elected in 1974, Mr. Murtha used his position as the top Democrat on the Appropriation Committee’s military subcommittee to reward or punish colleagues, depending on whether they went along with the special items, or “earmarks,” that he tucked into bills for the benefit of his 12th Congressional District. More often than not, they did.

The chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, once described Mr. Murtha as someone “who likes to get things done with virtually no spoken words.”

Actually, Mr. Murtha understood the power of words quite well. “Let me tell you the facts of life,” he would tell balky legislators, as he recalled in a 2006 interview. “If you vote against this bill, you won’t have any input at all the next time.”

Nor was he the least apologetic about the political horse-trading in which he was so expert. “Deal making is what Congress is all about,” he said in that 2006 interview.

Mr. Murtha was the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress. While he steered huge sums to his district, he lived modestly in Johnstown, where he owned a car wash.

Mr. Murtha, who served five years in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives before going to Washington, was a protégé of Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill of Massachusetts, who may not have coined the phrase that “all politics is local” but surely embraced it. So did John P. Murtha, who once boasted on a campaign billboard that “The ‘P’ stands for power.” (It actually stood for Patrick.)

In some ways, Mr. Murtha was a man of contradictions. A slogan in his first campaign for Congress was “One Honest Man Is Enough.” Yet he barely survived the Abscam affair that ruined several politicians in the early 1980s. Mr. Murtha was shown on videotape turning down money from an undercover F.B.I. agent posing as a “sheikh,” but he expressed a willingness to revisit the money issue later.

Despite that awkward moment, he was never charged, and he eventually testified against two other Abscam defendants.

Early in 2009, he came under scrutiny again, when it came to light that federal agents had raided the offices of the PMA Group, a major Washington lobbying firm, in November 2008 as part of an investigation into potentially improper campaign contributions.

Mr. Murtha was among the lawmakers lobbied by the firm — no surprise, since the firm’s founder, Paul Magliocchetti, had worked for Mr. Murtha — and PMA’s executives and clients were major sources of contributions to Mr. Murtha’s campaigns. The firm’s specialty was helping clients obtain multimillion-dollar earmarks, Mr. Murtha’s stock in trade.

The PMA Group closed its doors in the aftermath of the investigation, and a Congressional ethics office declined to recommend formal investigations into the actions of Mr. Murtha and the other legislators. But the affair did nothing to dispel the impression that Mr. Murtha was not above running a political trading post.

Even Mr. Murtha’s own words did not defeat him. In October 2008, for example, he opined that some of his own constituents were “redneck” and “racist” and might have trouble voting for Barack Obama for president.

Trying to explain away his remarks, Mr. Murtha told local reporters that change was difficult for some people. “Particularly older people,” he went on, “they want change, but they don’t want to see things go too far.” That was a tactless thing to say in Pennsylvania, which then had the second-highest population of elderly people in the country, after Florida, according to The Almanac of American Politics.

But Mr. Murtha won handily anyhow, albeit over a political unknown. “You keep sending me back regardless of what I say,” he told his supporters on Election Night.

The special election that sent Mr. Murtha to Congress in February 1974 was watched for what it would say, if anything, about the strength of President Richard M. Nixon, who was being consumed by the Watergate scandal. Mr. Murtha won by fewer than 200 votes, out of some 120,000 cast, and he soon showed himself more comfortable with old-style, pork-and-parochial politics than with reformist themes ushered in by Watergate.

Born in New Martinsville, W.Va., on June 17, 1932, Mr. Murtha grew up in Mount Pleasant, Pa., about 45 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. He left William & Mary College in 1952 to enlist in the Marine Corps and go to Korea.

In a recent interview with The Johnston Tribune-Democrat, he recalled feeling that being in college just did not feel right while “there is a war going on; we are fighting the Communists.”

After graduating with a degree in economics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962, he rejoined the Marines, serving as an officer in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 and receiving a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry.

Survivors include his wife of 55 years, Joyce; a daughter, Donna; twin sons John and Patrick, and three grandchildren.

[Thanas]

He was very much the epitome of pork, but also one of the few who dared to criticize the war, which earned him my respect.

[hunter5]

Holy crap this was unexpected. I didn't agree with much of what Murtha stood for but am saddened for such a strong willed person to pass.

[Darth Wong]

It's amazing to me how people view gallbladder surgery as such a routine thing. They're going into your abdomen and removing an entire organ; this is a major invasive procedure and any such procedure should always be considered an event which poses a serious risk of death or injury.

I've met people who had their livers or stomach muscles cut by accident while taking out the gallbladder. It makes you wonder how common complications are.

[Edi]

Even if it was just an infection after the surgery, that's a big deal and could easily account for it.

[Thanas]

Especially considering his age and health.

[Shroom Man 777]

Old people generally do not last long after invasive procedure, on account of their being old.

But gallbladder surgeries nowadays usually don't involve cutting open the abdomen. They use laparoscopes made through tiny incisions - usually they insert three laprascopes through three tiny incisions, and with the cameras and tiny tools to do surgery on the internal organs. This reduces the invasiveness of the procedure, compared to a laparotomy where a much bigger incision is used to gain access to the innards.

Still, they're all invasive procedures and as with all surgeries, are never risk-free.


Too bad for the guy and his family. Is this a big blow to the Democratic Party? Looks like they just can't get a break.

[Sea Skimmer]

I check search turned up a figure for a half million gallbladder operations a year with about 9 in 1000 for complications, 4-5 in 1000 for complications from the laparoscopic procedure. Less then 1:1000 will die. Apparently the complication rate is below average, but the death rate above average for all surgeries.

It seems Murtha died because of an accidental cut to a bile duct. He was a hell of a pork barrel king from an absurdly gerrymandered district, but that’s a really shitty way to go for anyone.