SEATTLE – An activist group called MillionsofAmericans.com has launched an online petition drive calling on Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to step down for comments she made last week to students in praise of Osama bin Laden’s nation-building tactics.
Petition-organizer Bruce Eberle said his aim is to gather a million signatures “so Patty Murray can’t ignore the wishes of the American people.”
In a letter sent out yesterday seeking signatures, Eberle said the story “made my blood boil.”
“Yes, I think it was good and appropriate for Trent Lott to step down due to his foolish and thoughtless comments,” he wrote. “But if he should step down for his comments, that goes double for U.S. Senator Patty Murray! Her comments are offensive to every father or mother that lost a son or daughter in the 9-11 terrorist attacks. They were cruel, mean, and insensitive to every child that lost a parent in those attacks.”
In a session at Columbia River High School in Vancouver, Wash., last Wednesday, the senator asked students to ponder why bin Laden is “so popular around the world.”
Murray said bin Laden has been “out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven’t done that.”
The second-term senator, who is up for re-election in 2004, then asked the students: “How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?”
A recording of some of Murray’s comments can be found here.
Eberle’s website says that since its birth over a year ago, it has collected and delivered more than 1 million petitions and letters.
Checking the pulse
The website Vote.com, run by former President Clinton adviser Dick Morris, has an online poll that asks “Should Sen. Murray apologize?”
As of 6:25 p.m. Eastern Time yesterday, 91 percent, or 7,276, in the unscientific tally said “Yes. It was outrageous for her to tell students that we could learn a lesson from bin Laden.”
Just 715 people said, “No. She knows bin Laden is evil; her comments were meant to be thought-provoking.”
Vote.com says the results will be sent to Sen. Murray.
In another online poll, Seattle’s KCPQ-TV news asked readers, “Do you think Sen. Patty Murray went too far with her comments?”
Just over 82 percent, or 4,410, said yes, while about 18 percent, or 951, said no.
In a WorldNetDaily online poll last week, about 76 percent, or 4,306 people, said Murray’s comments were “far worse” than Sen. Trent Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond, and another 8 percent said they were “equally bad.”
Meanwhile, in an editorial on Christmas day, the Washington Post called Murray’s performance before the Vancouver students “inept,” but warned there is a danger “that people will become afraid to criticize any aspect of American foreign policy, lest they be branded ‘anti-American.'”
The Post said Murray’s “crime, it seems, was to make an ill-worded and rather silly speech” to the world history students and student government leaders.
The paper noted that in a normal week, the Vancouver Columbian’s website receives 60,000 to 70,000 visitors, but the day following the paper’s story about the senator’s speech, it had 230,000 visitors. As the website put it, the Post said, “There are top stories, and then there is Patty Murray.”
The Post went on to say that “Sen. Murray got a few things very wrong.”
“Osama bin Laden,” the paper said, “spent a lot more money on terrorist training camps than on day-care centers; the senator appears to have confused him with the fundamentalist charities that have won so much support for the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas on the West Bank. Nor did she seem to have considered the possibility that the ‘bombing’ of Afghanistan and Iraq might also, in the long term, be in the interest of the Afghans and the Iraqis.”
“Nevertheless,” said the Post, “there is a deeper point that Sen. Murray, with extraordinary ineptitude, seemed to be trying to make – a point that is worth preserving: At the very least, it ought to be possible to discuss America’s image in the Islamic world, and the kinds of mistakes the United States has made there.”
Meanwhile, a retired Marine, Boyce Clark, wrote this week in a letter to the editor of The Herald of Everett, Wash., that “Sen. Murray’s irrational, insensitive challenge to these students” was an “affront to every person wearing the uniform of the United States.”
“While an apology from her should be forthcoming, it will never erase the damage she has perpetuated,” Boyce wrote. “It will be interesting to see how her Senate colleagues react to her unfortunate remarks. Hopefully, they will consider some type of reprimand or censure; it is most deserving.”
Previous stories:
Murray pushed for aid to Taliban before 9-11
National press ignores praise for bin Laden
‘Bizarre’ praise of Osama riles senator’s challenger
Democrat senator praises bin Laden
