Last night the House Rule committee, in an effort to cleave the Democrats and ridicule Jack Murtha (D-Pa) for his emotional and heart-felt plea to end the war and pull out troops within 6 months, put forth HR 572 to force a vote on a corrupted version of Murtha’s plea, HR 571.

The Republicans changed Murtha’s language from “within 6 months” to “immediately”. Their goal was to cleave the Democratic vote and put this measure to bed before the Thanksgiving break. In short, they exploited the Iraq war in a cheap shot aimed at political gain.

When HR 572 went to the floor, it was a vote on whether or not to put the corrupted version of HR 571 to a vote. C-Span reported last night that JD Hayworth (R-AZ) was the mastermind behind the scheme. The Republicans used their C-Span air time to accuse the Democrats of being unpatriotic – their version of a political spanking.

Republicans all voted “yea” to HR 572 forcing a vote on the corrupted HR 571. When the vote for HR 571 came, they all switched their votes and voted “nay” killing the measure they brought to the floor.

The Democrats consistently voted “nay” to both measures, not taking the bait. The Republicans were unsuccessful at exploiting the war to bring down the Dems.

According to an AP report, at one point in the emotional debate, Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) told of a phone call she received from a Marine colonel.

“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,” Schmidt said. Murtha is a 37-year Marine veteran and ranking Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee.

Democrats booed and shouted her down — causing the House to come to a standstill.

What little press coverage this has received misses the underlying motivation of the entire incident. The Republicans will exploit anyone, anywhere, to further their selfish causes. They are afraid for their jobs next November (as they should be) and they are slinging as much mud as they can.