OpinionJournal.com's James Taranto absolutely nails Rep. John Murtha's latest pronouncement, so I'll quote it extensively.

'In Cold Blood'
The Pentagon is investigating whether U.S. Marines committed war crimes in a November incident in which 15 Iraqi civilians were killed in Haditha, Iraq. NBC News reports that Rep. John Murtha, who voted for the war in Iraq, claims to have advance knowledge of the investigation's outcome:

Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that "there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

What happened in Haditha we know not, but we can tell you that Murtha's description is false, for the simple reason that it is self-contradictory. If the Marines "overreacted," then the killings were not premeditated. They could not have killed both in the heat of the moment and in cold blood. Murtha therefore either is slandering the Marines by exaggerating their guilt or making excuses for horrific war crimes.

Why would he do such a thing? The key is that phrase "because of the pressure on them." They're depraved on account of they're deployed: Murtha seeks to maximize the evil of the alleged crimes while simultaneously deflecting blame from the actual perpetrators to those who have applied "pressure" to them--i.e., civilian leaders in the executive branch.

The target, of course, is President Bush and it's telling what lengths Democrats -- even decorated veterans like Murtha -- will go to "get" Bush. In Murtha's mad worldview, he can excuse war crimes perpetrated by individuals because President Bush put them up to it somehow. If these Marines are guilty, then they've brought same upon themselves, the United States and the Marine Corps. But Bush has about as much responsibility for this as Murtha himself does -- which is none.