Is Murtha tainted? Updated.

and against reform?

Update:
Does it depend on what kind of earmarking and if it is the only way to do business?
"The Washington term for this disgrace is "earmarks"—a better expression might be "pawmarks," for the device that allows politicians to lay their paws on taxpayers' money and spend it on back-home projects like bridges and bicycle paths without going through the normal vetting process. Remember Alaska's infamous $223 million "bridge to nowhere"? The number of "pawmarks" has shot up 10-fold since the Republicans took control of the House in 1994, ballooning from 1,439 to over 14,000 last year."

Well...that's gonna change.

Update 11/14:
Arianna's vote of confidence (via Crooks and Liars):
"In today's toxic political environment, that kind of leadership usually comes with a price. For Murtha that meant being relentlessly Swiftboated and smeared for the next year by Bush, Rove, and the hatchet-men they contract their dirty work to. But he never stopped speaking out... or blogging out (he's been a regular contributor to HuffPost). His stance on the war isn't about politics, it's about principle. He's a man on a mission.

And though Murtha's impassioned and well-reasoned arguments didn't budge the delusional fanatics in the White House and the Pentagon, they were extremely important in prodding his fellow Democrats to begin talking about the war in a different way."

Update 11/14:
CREW doesn't like him.