Her comments calling John Murtha a coward (then it turning out that the person who she said told her to deliver that message on the House floor basically repudiated her version) did not go over well even in the GOP. Robert Novak:
Newly elected Rep. Jean Schmidt of Ohio, excoriated by Democrats for intimating that Rep. John Murtha is a coward, faces a possible Republican primary challenge next year from former Rep. Bob McEwen.
Piercing the usual veil of anonymity for freshman House members, Schmidt was battered by Democrats for suggesting that decorated wounded war veteran Murtha was a coward because he proposed withdrawal from Iraq. Republican colleagues were furious with her for making the well-liked Murtha the issue instead of the war.
Former State Rep. Schmidt won the nomination last June 14 with 31 percent of the vote in the 11-candidate field, trailed by McEwen’s 25 percent. In the Aug. 2 special election, she nearly lost the heavily Republican Cincinnati-area district.
A political sic semper tyrannis?
Politically, perhaps she belongs here for the remainder of her term..
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.