Remembering Abscam... and why Murtha shouldn't be majority leader.

Ruth Marcus reminds us:

"I'm not interested -- at this point," he says of the dangled bribe. "You know, we do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't, you know." Indeed, he acknowledges, even though he needs to be careful -- "I expect to be in the [expletive] leadership of the House," he notes -- the money's awfully tempting. "It's hard for me to say, just the hell with it."

This is John Murtha, incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi's choice to be her majority leader, snared but not charged in the Abscam probe in 1980. "The Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," Pelosi pledged on election night. Five days later she wrote Murtha a letter endorsing his bid to become her No. 2.

I hadn't remembered that. My objection to Murtha as a leader is based on an opinion I formed watching him on "Meet the Press" back in June. I just don't think he's mentally with it at all. He was embarrassingly inarticulate and confused.