Rep. Nancy Pelosi is making a good start. It is a coup for the public that she is supporting Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania for House Majority Leader. With any luck, they both win; high time we had someone with some actual political heroism in the Majority Leader post.

With the 2006 election results of last week already taken for granted and with the conventional wisdom now established that the public is fed up with the Iraq war, what Murtha accomplished may be forgotten. Several recent media reports seem to be taking a rather odd line. But it was Murtha who gave a credible political voice, and a face, to the message that the military effort in Iraq had gone as far as it could go, that you cannot fight terrorism with military action alone.

It might be interesting to know who is spoon-feeding talking points to the AP, about Murtha, evidently designed to support Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland for Majority Leader. The cloudy key word du jour appears to be “ethics.”

This might be a good time to remember that the Iraq war is also an ethical issue. Regardless of whether Jack Abramoff is actually going to name Democratic names among the list of senators tainted or compromised by his dealings, the party cannot stand very tall if it fails to face up to the lies that got this nation into Iraq; the profiteering and corruption connected to military and security procurement in the war; and the bloodshed and violence being visited on the Iraqi people as well as on Americans as a direct consequence of the war. Democratic leaders who fell all over themselves to side with Bush against the public interest need some good feedback.

Funny how much moderation seems to be venerated in the abstract, and how little it seems to be applied. There is no moderation in wartime. And there is nothing “centrist” about invading a string of other countries.

Did anybody hear the president compare Fallujah to Iwo Jima? Some of our prominent Democrats would do well to subordinate their individual ambition to more important matters, like keeping the deranged White House from elevating terrorism into the world war that envious-of-FDR George Bush wants so badly. Every man is entitled to his private fantasies, but there is no reason to give the White House, and nukes, to somebody who wants to play catching-up-with-Roosevelt.