Military Death, Political Exploitation

After reading this story, I regret that I did not spend more time going after Jim Gerlach in the 6th U.S. House Congressional District campaign in which he successfully defended his seat against Lois Murphy.

Gerlach and fellow Repug Arlen Specter are now lobbying VA Secretary Jim Nicholson to change the site of the proposed veterans’ cemetery from Dolington Farms in Bucks County to the Pennhurst State School and Hospital Site in Gerlach’s district.

Gerlach and Specter profess to be disappointed by the slow pace of the legal activity involving Toll Brothers Inc., which own the land at the Bucks County site (and the Inquirer, of course, which the paper notes), and other parties, with Gerlach adding that the Pennhurst site in East Vincent Township is an option “that (isn’t) going to be available forever.”

However (as noted in the story)…

The revised Pennhurst proposal eliminates an area that contains many old buildings that the VA would have had to pay to demolish and then clean up the underlying contamination, said Joanne Phillips, director of real estate for DGS.

The buildings and their demolition are included in an agreement of sale for 108 acres that the department signed with a developer, Pennhurst Associates. Phillips said the agreement called for the developer to secure subdivision approval from the township by this fall or the agreement would be canceled.

She said the higher asking price also was necessitated by increased construction costs for a new armory and a personal-care addition to a veterans' home on the site.

But, dear reader, you and I know what’s really going on here; base politics, pure and simple.

If Mikey Fitzpatrick had been re-elected last year, I guarantee you that there is no way that this discussion would even be taking place. No way whatsoever.

However, since Patrick Murphy, a Democrat, is now our U.S. House representative, this gives Gerlach an opportunity for one-upsmanship and the possibility of delivering the cemetery (along with the more costly cleanup and site additions). And with Repug Monkey Boy Arlen along for the ride in the Senate, that gives Gerlach even more clout on the issue.

Though this is a cheap political trick, I grudgingly admit that this reveals some canny political instincts on Gerlach’s part (who, as I noted earlier, I blew off more or less in the election because I was preoccupied with Joe Pitts, who has a much worse voting record than Gerlach, hard as that is to fathom).

Even though Mikey’s campaign against Patrick last year had its share of lowlights, I’m glad Mikey didn’t try any of the stuff that Gerlach did in his race, most infamously, the dead-of-night robo-calls pretending to represent the Lois Murphy campaign (as far as I know, anyway). And Gerlach can somehow get through to the “God and guns” crowd in his district in a way that Mikey just couldn’t in the 8th (and I actually say that with grudging respect for Fitzpatrick, believe it or not). I seem to recall a T.V. ad with Gerlach in full hunting gear firing a rifle and then turning to the T.V. camera and uttering some typically-RNC-approved put down of Lois that quite probably would not have stood up under a reasonable amount of investigation, though it surely generated an “ooh” and “aah” out of some of Gerlach’s single-brain-celled supporters.

And finally, I send out a great big raspberry to the Inquirer for not even bothering to contact Patrick Murphy on this for a quote. At least the Bucks County Courier Times extended that courtesy, with Adam Abrams, Patrick’s communications director, expressing hope that the impasse with the Bucks County site can be resolved; since it’s a legal matter at this point, that’s about all he can do (no Courier Times link available yet).