Anti-war darling Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) is running for Majority Leader in the soon-to-be Demcratic House with a bit of ethics baggage. He's been video taped in the FBI sting ABSCAM back in the 1980s and is a prolific earmarker to defense contractors that hire the lobbying firms the PMA Group and KSA Consulting, which employs his brother Kit. And now Murtha has decided to shovel dirt onto this pile (presumably shoveling from the hole that he is digging). Roll Call reports that in a meeting with Blue Dog Democrats Murtha referred to the ethics reform proposal that Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) intends to make the first bill passed in the 110th Congress as "total crap".

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) told a group of Democratic moderates on Tuesday that an ethics and lobbying reform bill being pushed by party leaders was “total crap,” but said that he would work to enact the legislation because Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) supports it.

…

A Democratic lawmaker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he was “surprised” by the tone of Murtha’s comments, especially Murtha’s repeated claim that he would back any proposal that Pelosi favored. This lawmaker has already declared for Hoyer.

“‘My agenda will be Nancy’s agenda’ — he kept saying that,” the lawmaker said. “The performance was stunningly awful.”

Another Democrat who was in the room said Murtha’s remarks, especially on the ethics and lobbying reform bill, “were not the right thing to say in front of a roomful of Blue Dogs.”

Murtha was one of four Democrats to vote against this proposal, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, earlier in the year. This is not the way to build Pelosi's vision, "the most honest, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history."

TPM Muckraker has good background on other Murtha muck.