‘Idiotic’ remarks

Terry Everett, Alabama’s lame-duck congressman from the 2nd District, has hinted that he is considering a run for governor after he concludes his 8th term in Washington.

We’d rather he just head on to the farm; Alabama has enough image problems already.

Everett hasn’t helped. Last week, the congressman unleashed a harsh personal attack on Democratic U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Vietnam veteran whose positions Everett opposes.

“... (D)on’t talk to me about him being an ex-Marine. Lord, that was 40 years ago. Thank you for your service as being an ex-Marine, but that doesn’t mean you’re (not) an idiot, and he is,” Everett said.
“Cut-and-run John Murtha is in charge of the appropriations committee for defense, and he is certainly no friend of the military.”

Everett’s partisan diatribe reads like a Fox News script from the pen of Karl Rove, only less plausible.

The Democratic-controlled Congress has increased spending on Veterans Affairs and more than doubled funding for troops and veterans in a new GI Bill, which, incidentally, Everett voted against.

The GOP has anchored the presidential bid of Sen. John McCain in his military service and POW experience, which should rightly command a great deal of respect.

That Everett, who spent his military tour in peacetime Europe in the late 1950s, would be dismissive of Murtha’s decorated combat service reveals a great deal about his attitude toward our troops and veterans — unless one is Republican, it apparently counts for nothing.

Everett owes a very public apology to Rep. Murtha, the U.S. House, America’s military and veterans and the people of Alabama.

Like Murtha, Everett is no idiot. But his remarks, even if made on a low-power AM talk radio in southeast Alabama, were, at best, idiotic.