Rookie Lawmaker's 'Coward' Remarks Ricochet

Three days after Rep. Jean Schmidt was booed off the House floor for saying that "cowards cut and run, Marines never do," the Ohioan she quoted disputed the comments.

Danny Bubp, a freshman state representative who is a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, told The Enquirer that he never mentioned Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., by name when talking with Schmidt, and he would never call a fellow Marine a coward.

"The unfortunate thing about all of that is that her choice of words on the floor of the House - I don't know, she's a freshman, she had one minute.

"Unfortunately, they came out wrong," said Bubp, R-West Union.

Lawmakers were in the midst of a passionate debate Friday over whether to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, an issue pushed to a vote by Republicans after public comments from Murtha.

Schmidt - decked out in a red-white-and-blue suit that resembled the U.S. flag - went to the floor and quoted from a telephone conversation with Bubp: "He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course.

"He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: That cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

The comment drew a chorus of boos and shouting from Democrats.

It's unclear whether Schmidt, who will start her 79th day in the House today, knew at the time of her remarks that Murtha had served 37 years in the Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve.

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