Times Declares Murtha "Influential"

The NY Times, in the lede for its story on Congressman John Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq, declares that Murtha, age 73, is "influential". As the story says, he is...follow this...the ranking Democrat on the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. (The capitalizations are the Times').

Leaving aside that the Times never touches on what, if any, impact Murtha thinks this will have on the Iraqis, the Middle East, the terrorist movement and US's geopolitical position, who the hell outside his neck of Pennsylvania ever heard of him? How does he rate the designation "influential" when after over 30 years of service in Congress the best he has achieved is leadership of a subcommittee? Further, as the Times states, "He generally shuns publicity and does not often speak on the House floor."

This reader concludes that he had to be dubbed influential in order to keep up the drumbeat on the MSM's preconcieved current story line about the rising opposition to Bush.

Update: AP's story, posted on Yahoo, calls Murtha "Hawkish" in their headline. CNN's headline refers to him as a "Senior Democrat". Both seem more accurate than the Times.