Kline’s Non-Apology Apology to Marines

There’s two stories involved here: What did a Marine Corps congressional briefing officer actually say that led to both Rep. Murtha and Rep. Kline, both retired senior Marine officers, Murtha a Democrat and Kline a Republican, to denounce the Marines at Haditha? The second story, posted by a left-leaning blogger (whom I hadn’t heard of before, but expressing my sentiments) is below in entirety.

Kline may have done the right thing to apologize but seems to have compounded that with a cover-up. I trust the USMC to provide justice, based on what I’ve seen in the press so far doubt the case against the Marines, but we have yet to see what evidence may have been gathered, and owe it to these Marines and to ourselves to reserve judgments. Rep. Murtha, are you listening to your former comrades in arms, or to Nancy Pelosi?

Monday, August 14, 2006 On Republican accountability As Glenn Greenwald mentioned last weekend the right has been eager to bash John Murtha over his Haditha comments, but have failed to mention that comments as bad or worse were made by conservatives and Republican lawmakers like Rep. John Kline (Minn.). So, Glenn seems to have forced the hand of the lawyer suing John Murtha, who added Kline to his lawsuit. Kline backed down fast, but get this bit of sweet backtracking. Kline wrote that news outlets used incomplete statements that gave the false impression that he had concluded the Marines broke the law.

"I am, of course, very concerned regarding any allegations surrounding misconduct by U.S. troops in Iraq," Kline wrote in his statement. "Such allegations must be taken seriously, but we should never rush to judgment before all the facts are known and the military criminal justice process is completed."

Kline, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was briefed on Haditha by Marine Brig. Gen. John F. Kelly, the legislative assistant to the Marine commandant. At the time of the briefings, the official investigations were not complete, and Kline emphasized that "conclusions have not been reached."
Does Kline think so little of the American people that he thinks they'll buy that comments like these were taken out of context?
There is no question that the Marines involved, those doing the shooting, they were busy in lying about it and covering it up — there is no question about it.
Or...
This was a small number of Marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them...This is going to be an ugly story.
Or...
Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is a retired Marine colonel, said that the allegations indicated that "this was not an accident. This was direct fire by marines at civilians." He added, "This was not an immediate response to an attack. This would be an atrocity."
Kline, like Murtha, is a retired Marine field-grade officer. I might be impressed with him if he could simply say, "I was wrong," but this is an apology-free apology. He's saying that he didn't really say those things, because the press took his statements out of context. Some apology.