Patrick’s Book Debuts At Long Last

This story in the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday tells us that Patrick Murphy’s memoir, “Taking The Hill: From Philly to Baghdad to the United States Congress,” hit the market yesterday (here). Some particular items that are discussed in the book include the following…

A call from Bill Clinton on election night 2006 (when running against Fitzpatrick the incumbent for his U.S. House seat) where Murphy “…gave (Clinton) the numbers and asked his advice,” (given the fact that the election was so close, and) “The former president was clear: "Don't let those bastards take away your victory. You go down to that hall and declare yourself the winner. Let the press sort it out.' ”

Murphy’s split with his then-fiancée when he returned from Iraq.

When he married his wife, Jenni, in June 2006, his parish priest refused to bless the marriage in a Catholic validation ceremony because of his public pro-choice views. As his campaign heated up, he wrote that a group of Fitzpatrick supporters harassed him and his wife as they left Sunday Mass.

Such good, upstanding “Christians” – and here is another insightful excerpt…

The whole campaign (against Fitzpatrick) was a baptism by fire. Every kind of attack was leveled at me. My stammering Chris Matthews interview was used in a negative ad. Because I had been single when I moved to New Hope, where there was a large gay community, my opponents began whispering that I was gay. Because the row house I grew up in was a couple hundred feet outside the Eighth Congressional District, maybe two city blocks, I was accused of being a carpetbagger, even though my apartment, some relatives, my grade school, church, hockey rink, and community college were all located within the district. Because I had voted for George W. Bush by military absentee ballot in 2000, having been duped by his “compassionate conservative” agenda, I was accused of not being a real Democrat. Because I didn't vote in the primary and general election every year, or even in the majority of elections since I had reached voting age, I was accused of not being a good citizen. Because I was pro-choice, I was accused to being a bad Catholic. Because I was Catholic, I was accused to not being pro-choice. The attacks were surreal. Sometimes I wondered what I had gotten myself into.

And in case anyone has a doubt as to whether or not the Repugs are priming their “fear and smear” machine at this moment (and why would you?), take note of the following from the Courier Times article…

Mike Walsh, a spokesman for Tom Manion, a retired Marine from Doylestown Township who also hopes to run against Murphy in November, said the book is a glaring example of the freshman congressman's “misplaced priorities.”

“Here we have the lowest rated Congress in history and [Murphy's] priorities are writing a book and, now, publicizing it,” Walsh said. “The people in Bucks County didn't send him to Washington to write a book.”

First of all, Repugs, Patrick signed the book deal before he was sworn into office, so we’re done there.

Second, as far as this “lowest-rated Congress in history” garbage goes, read this.

And this story tells us that Patrick opposes granting immunity to the telecomm companies as part of the FISA fiasco orchestrated by Dubya and the Repugs…

“His scare tactics have grown thin,” Murphy said Friday. “We can absolutely, positively continue to have surveillance on American phone lines if people are talking to a foreign entity … and anyone who says differently is lying to the American people.”

And so how does prospective Repug challenger Tom Manion respond?

“I just can’t see how Congress has time to vote on congratulating the [New York] Giants and not the time to vote on this before they leave,” Manion said. “I would have stayed there all night and worked with the Republicans and the Democrats to get this thing done.”

Murphy was one of 10 Democrats to vote Thursday evening to cancel the congressional recess and try to reach a compromise solution on the legislation.

I see that Manion is going to play “good cop” while all of the other Repugs play “bad cop.” They really have no other shot but to do that (and as long as Manion mentioned that phony-baloney vote congratulating the ‘Jints, I have to note once more this great move by Patrick on that).

And I can also detect another line of attack for the Repugs coming up here on FISA, by the way;

The legislation, known as the Protect America Act, was passed by the House in August. Murphy, along with 180 other Democrats, voted against the act then. Murphy voted against the bill because it didn’t ensure proper oversight of President Bush’s executive authority, according to Adam Abrams, a Murphy spokesman.

Murphy did vote for a similar surveillance act, known as the Restore America Act, in November because it “struck the right balance between keeping American families safe and protecting the Constitution,” Abrams said.

Both Pennsylvania senators, Republican Arlen Specter and Democrat Bob Casey, voted for the Protect America Act.

(And I’ll plan to have some words for Mr. Casey Jr. in a couple of days regarding his most recent FISA vote; it represented a step back after a step forward, which isn’t good enough as far as I’m concerned.)

So to reply when the Repugs say, “Murphy voted against the terrorists before he voted for them,” or some such idiocy, Patrick voted for the Restore America Act because it provided the proper constitutional safeguards while allowing us to wage the legitimate war on terror intelligently, but he voted against the Protect America Act because it was yet another cave-in to Dubya at our expense.

Any questions?

Update 2/28/08: And here's an interview (h/t Atrios).