The documents on the FBI's 3-decade-old investigation state that "during the course of the operations, Abscam has developed prosecutive federal cases against" 15 people, including Murtha.

The Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania was never charged, but the government named him as an unindicted coconspirator. He testified against two other congressmen.

FBI agents captured Murtha on videotape turning down a $50,000 bribe offer, while holding out the possibility that he might take money in the future.

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But recent history suggests they shouldn’t get too excited.

Believe it or not, it’s been almost nine years since the GOP picked up a previously Democratic-held House seat through a special election. Democrats, by contrast, have won six GOP-held seats in special elections in that time. And it’s not as if the Democrats were picking off low-hanging fruit: All but one of those victories came in districts that vote reliably for Republicans at the presidential level.

There are several reasons for the Democrats’ special election success. The most obvious is that many of the pickups came when George W. Bush’s popularity was at its lowest and voters were eager to take out their frustrations on Republican candidates.

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Funeral arrangements haven't been finalized yet for Murtha, the longest-serving House member in Pennsylvania history, and few political operatives would talk on the record about exactly how to replace him, out of respect for a local legend. But each party is looking at a few names for an election where insiders -- not primary voters -- will pick the candidates.

On the Democratic side, talk is focusing on former Lieutenant Gov. Mark Singel, of Johnstown, Pa.; state Sen. John Wozniak, who has represented the area in Harrisburg since winning a state House seat in 1980; Murtha's chief of staff, John Hugya; and possibly his son, John M. Murtha.

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Murtha -- who became the longest-serving House member in Pennsylvania history on Saturday, after 19 terms in Congress -- was one of the masters of legislative negotiations and backroom dealing, and his support in 2006 helped make Nancy Pelosi the first woman speaker of the House. Pelosi, in turn, backed Murtha in his losing race against Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., to be the House majority leader.

For years, Murtha steered billions of dollars in federal projects to military contractors in his district near Johnstown, Pa., and he supported big defense budgets from his perch on the House committee that oversaw Pentagon spending. He was one of the proudest practitioners of congressional "earmarking," dropping little grants that benefited his district into must-pass defense spending bills without a moment's hesitation or apology. (When President Obama pushed for a freeze on discretionary spending last month, Murtha laughed about it. "Well, he can call for it, but we're the guys who make the decision," the Washington Post quoted him as saying. "I always remind them of that.")

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The congressman had gallbladder surgery in December; his current hospitalization is reportedly due to complications from that.

A longtime veteran of the House, Murtha has been more prominent in recent years, ever since he came out to call for a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. He's been having a rough go of it lately, though, as his ties to defense contractors and pork barrel habits in general have been earning him some close scrutiny.

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Unsurprisingly, then, being a deficit-hawk is back in vogue among Republicans. It’s been one of the GOP’s main lines of attack against, well, everything -- but particularly healthcare reform. One major policy debate, however, has managed to avoid any discussion of costs, even though the expenditures could total hundreds of billions of dollars, with little promise of return. That policy, of course, would be any escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

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Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney prosecuting Blagojevich, seems to have quite a bit on the former governor already. But he added substantially to his case when Blagojevich's old chief of staff, John Harris, agreed to plead guilty to a wire fraud charge. The plea agreement makes clear that Harris will be testifying against his former boss, and will likely play a big role in Blagojevich's trial.

Separately, prosecutors in Pennsylvania got a plea agreement from Richard Ianeri, the former president of a defense contractor with close ties to Murtha. Federal prosecutors are already looking into a lobbying firm that was run by a former top aide of the congressman's, and investigating the possibility that the company directed bogus contributions to him.

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Congressional Quarterly reports that 104 members of the House (54 Democrats and 50 Republicans) combined with a few senators to secure a total of roughly $300 million worth of earmarks for the clients of lobbying firm PMA, all of it in a single defense appropriations bill in 2008. That PMA connection is coming back to bite them, as the company --  founded by Paul Magliochetti, a former top aide to Murtha -- is currently the subject of an FBI investigation. The Feds are looking into potentially illegal campaign contributions to Murtha and fellow Reps. Jim Moran (D-Va.) and Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.).

Of the 104 lawmakers, 91 received campaign donations, amounting to $1,815,138 overall since 2001, from PMA employees, associates, and the firm's political action committee.

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During the election campaign last fall, the congressman got in trouble for saying his own district is in a "racist area." All of a sudden, he found himself in a real fight for re-election, and though he eventually pulled out a comfortable victory, he needed to bring in a lot of new funding for his campaign in order to do so. Now, one of the sources he turned to for that money could land him in some hot water.

Federal prosecutors are currently looking at PMA Group, a lobbying shop founded by Paul Magliocchetti, a former top aide of Murtha's. And, the New York Times reports, they're investigating the possibility that Magliocchetti may havc directed "bogus" contributions to Murtha and two other Democratic congressmen, Virginia's Jim Moran and Indiana's Pete Visclosky.

"In the first half of 2007, the PMA Group and its clients contributed more than $500,000" to the three men, the Times says. "The lawmakers, meanwhile, earmarked more than $100 million in defense spending for PMA clients in the appropriations bills for 2008."

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My memories of the home-front battles during the Vietnam War have shaped, in large measure, my skeptical reaction to the rising crescendo of congressional voices vowing legislative action to curtail George W. Bush's war plans in Iraq and to set a timetable for American withdrawal. The late 1960s and early 1970s demonstrated the ineptness of Congress at condemning a war it once condoned. So many legislative vehicles, so much anguished debate and so little to show for it before 1973, five years into the Nixon administration and nine years after Lyndon Johnson first escalated the war in 1964. Even when Richard Nixon announced the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops from Vietnam on March 23, 1973, he was not so much humbled by Congress as buoyed by the Paris peace agreement with Hanoi. "We have prevented the imposition of a Communist government by force on South Vietnam," he declared.

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As this year's midterm elections approach, threatening his party's majority in both houses and possibly leaving his boss the lamest of ducks, Rove remains on the same course he charted last winter. Indeed, he announced his plan of attack in January, when he told the Republican National Committee that the "failed resolve" of Democrats who seek to withdraw from Iraq is "worthy of public debate," and vowed that "this president and this party" would not allow America to "retreat before victory."

Around that time, Republican operatives began to set up Web sites and test themes that the party could use against the most formidable critic of the president's Iraq policy, and started to prepare the "Swift-boating" of Rep. John "Jack" Murtha, D-Pa., a highly decorated Marine veteran, once-enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq invasion, and one of the military's best friends on Capitol Hill -- who stunned the Bush administration in November 2005 when he called for a phased withdrawal from Iraq.

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Despite all the invective fired at Rep. John Murtha, he is cruising toward reelection in his blue-collar southwestern Pennsylvania district without a serious challenge. (The socially conservative, pro-labor Democrat hasn't even bothered to put up a functioning campaign Web site yet.)

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Pace listed a couple of those "everythings" -- Iraqis are forming their own government, and there are more Iraqi battalions in the field now than there were a year ago -- but then made it clear that he was referring to the entirety of Iraq. "No matter where you look -- at their military, their police, their society -- things are much better this year than they were last," Pace said.

Really?

It's true that the Iraqis are trying to form a government; amid what the Associated Press calls a "dangerous leadership vacuum," the Iraqi parliament will convene for the first time this month as Sunni and Kurdish leaders try to persuade the Shiite prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, to give up hopes for a new term. And it's true that there are more Iraqi battalions in the field than there used to be, but the United States considers fewer of them -- which is to say, not a single one of them -- capable of fighting without help from U.S. troops.

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Although Dean now insists that he was quoted "a little out of context" -- and that in fact he believes "we have to win" the war -- his comment in San Antonio Monday offered every conservative pundit and Republican flack the perfect opportunity to portray Democrats as defeatists. Citizens across the political spectrum are well aware of the futility of the Bush strategy and the president's terrible mismanagement of the war, but their doubts about the likelihood of victory are not the same as admitting defeat. Talking about getting out requires very careful attention to national pride and honor, emotions that are easily subject to manipulation by the unscrupulous politicians in power.

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Yet one aspect of Bush's 2003 speech -- his explanation for how long the U.S. would occupy Iraq -- is strangely current even today. "We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more," Bush told the nation that night. Almost three years later, despite all that's gone wrong in Iraq, this vague stance -- staying in Iraq as long as Bush considers it necessary -- still remains the administration's policy for determining how and when to end the war.

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No wonder the American people -- who know that the president has lied to them repeatedly about this costly bloodshed -- have lost faith in George W. Bush, his party and his war, without gaining confidence in the opposition. Both sides are squandering the opportunity for a decent, honorable and constructive conclusion to the war because they will not face the realities honestly.

The president's recent speech on the war continued his execrable record of mendacity, especially with his exaggerated claims about the Iraqi role in the battle of Tal Afar and his insistence that the Iraqi armed forces are well on the way to independence. Two months ago, his own commanding officer, Gen. John Abizaid, testified in the Senate that after two years of supposed training, only one of a hundred Iraqi battalions is capable of operating on its own. One of a hundred! If the general spoke truthfully, how many decades would the Iraqis need before they could operate alone?

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"Murtha's irrelevant in all this," Limbaugh said, according to a transcript posted by Media Matters. "This is about our troops and our national security. Murtha's just getting his 15 minutes of fame like Cindy Sheehan got, and like Bill Burkett got ... the Jersey Girls, Richard Clarke, Joseph Wilson, you name it -- just the latest member of the endless parade of personalities around whom the Democrats can circle and support. "

Whoa there, Rushbo. The story that you're supposed to be spinning is that even the Democrats don't support Murtha's plan for Iraq. That was the whole point of the Republicans' parliamentary exercise Friday night. They threw before the House a resolution proclaiming that the "deployment of United States forces in Iraq" should be "terminated immediately." And when virtually everyone voted against it, all the Republican talking heads could proclaim that nobody in Congress thinks like Murtha does. "We had Democrats and Republicans alike pressing that button, saying basically, 'Don't pull out,'" Jean "I called him a 'coward' but I didn't mean to imply that he was a coward" Schmidt explained in a statement yesterday.

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"I am amazed at what a national story this has become," Schmidt said in a statement Monday after dodging the press for a couple of days. "I have been attacked very personally, continuously, since Friday evening."

Of course, one might say that Schmidt has been attacked because she attacked. On the House floor Friday night, Schmidt said she had just spoken with a constituent back in Ohio. "He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

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The Cincinnati Post is reporting that the Republican representative from Ohio won't talk to reporters about her decision to smear Pennsylvania Rep. Jack Murtha on the House floor last week, and the Cincinnati Enquirer says she skipped two previously scheduled public appearances yesterday.

Who can blame her, really? Four days after she strapped on her nicest red, white and blue sweater and suggested that a 37-year veteran of the Marine Corps is a "coward" who wants to "cut and run" from Iraq, Schmidt is under attack from editorial writers and comedians alike.

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