R.I.P. Jack Redux

KIAV transcript from this evening's episode of Hardballs with Chris Matthews. Chris. Take it away.

Jack Murtha who died today was an American patriot. He quit college to join the Marines and fight in Korea. We were fighting the Communists, and he didn't want to shirk his duty. He did the same thing as an officer, earning two Purple Hearts when America became involved in Vietnam. He bravely and single-mindedly carried on a family tradition of military life going back to the Civil War and the Revolution. And, for 37 years, Jack represented his western Pennsylvania district in the U.S. Congress. He was a close friend and supporter of my old boss, Speaker Tip O'Neill. He was a leader in standing up for the economic interests of our home state of Pennsylvania, and he was always there for the good fight, and he was so much fun to have around, in good times and bad. Jack Murtha was what Tip O'Neill liked to call a street-corner guy, someone who never lost touch with the people who elected him. He loved this country and looked out for its interests. He fought bravely in war and fought just as valiantly against a war in Iraq he believed was not in our country's interest. Jack was old-school. Let's see if the new-school types can match him in patriotism and looking out for their people and keeping this country great. For generations, he presided over the Pennsylvania corner in the House of Representatives, you could see him up there, surrounded by the members who looked up to him for leadership, for the inside word on what was coming legislatively and to carry out the gung-ho bread-and-butter American values he was brought up with. My prayers and good wishes are with his wife, Joyce, and the Murtha family, and the thousands of Jack Murtha fans in Johnstown, Altoona, and those hard-working communities out there in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I loved Jack Murtha. God bless him. U.S. Congressman Jack Murtha.