Nancy Pelosi seems to have two left feet.

Less that a week after being elected, and after promising the most ethical Congress ever, she endorses Jack Murtha for House Democrat Majority Leader over Steny Hoyer.

Now that might not seem too surprising--when she desperately needed a hawk to give the "get-us-out-of-Iraq" some credibility, Jack Murtha stepped up--if stepping up means accusing our troops of murder before the investigation was complete.

Yet until Murtha declared Iraq a lost cause, he was best known for being an unindicted co-conspirator in the ABSCAM, an FBI sting operation conducted in the late 1970s.

Murtha was videotaped "deferring" the bribe until he got to know his new benefactors a little better.

The fact that Murtha did not report the bribe attempt to the FBI both implied that he was indeed planning to take it at a later date, and ran afoul of House ethics rules. He was not censured as a result of a vote down party lines, but the panel's special counsel resigned in protest. Murtha avoided prosecution by throwing over a number of other Congressmen and has been reelected 12 times in his district since.

By contrast, Senator Larry Pressler (R-SD) replied when offered the same bribe, "Wait a minute, what you are suggesting may be illegal." He immediately reported the incident to the FBI. When Senator Pressler was told Walter Cronkite referred to him on the evening news as a "hero" he stated, "I do not consider myself a hero ... what have we come to if turning down a bribe is 'heroic'?"

This is obviously "ancient history", but Murtha also gets a dishonorable mention from Beyond Delay which notes the all-too-cosy relationship between Murtha and various defense contractors.

Paul Magliocchetti worked with Rep. Murtha as a senior staffer on the Defense appropriations subcommittee for 10 years. After leaving the committee, Mr. Magliocchetti founded the PMA Group, which has become one of the prominent Washington, D.C. defense lobbying firms. In the current campaign cycle, the PMA Group and 11 of the firm’s clients rank in the top 20 contributors to Rep. Murtha, having made campaign contributions totaling $274,649.2 In the 2004 and 2002 cycles, PMA and nine of the firm’s clients ranked in the top 20 contributors having made $236,7993 in contributions and $279,074, respectively. In turn, many of PMA’s clients have benefited significantly from Rep. Murtha’s earmarks. In the 2006 Defense appropriations bill, PMA clients received at least 60 earmarks at a total of $95.1 million.

That is just the tip of the iceberg.

KSA Consulting miraculously retained the bulk of its defense contractor clients after hiring Jack Murtha's brother Kit. The resulting "coincidences" between defense contract awards and campaign contributions are too numerous to ignore.

It might be tempting to dismiss all of this as "gotcha politics", but Democrats are looking askance at Pelosi's endorsement as well.

It doesn’t help matters that Murtha was one of exactly four Democrats to vote against their own caucus’ motion last month promoting a tougher ethics reform bill than a sham Republican version. Abscam may be ancient history, and no sinister confluence between Murtha’s work and his brother’s lobbying has been established. Still, Murtha may not be an ideal leader symbolically, at least-for a party determined to reform a “culture of corruption

That's Democrats for ya--deeply concerned about the symbolism, and let the substance be hanged.

While its clear that Pelosi owes Murtha, as House leader she has larger loyalties, or should. A smart leader would have simply stayed out of it. Pelosi's early missteps strongly suggest that she has no real conception of her responsibility to the party, much less the country.