More than a year ago, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-12th, made national news when he became an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq. More recently, Murtha made headlines when he was ranked as one of the most corrupt members of Congress.

A watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) named 22 lawmakers to its list of most corrupt. Murtha was one of just four Demo-crats to make the list with 18 Republican members of Congress.

The focus of CREW's criticism of Murtha centers around his well-known clout in Congress to deliver military-related earmarks, essentially no-bid contracts to businesses based in his home district and others that are significant contributors to his re-election campaigns.

Murtha's most-recent headlines came just last week when he announced that he, along with 12 other House members, had received a subpoena to testify in the trial of a defense contractor linked to former Rep. Randall "Duke"Cunningham, R-Calif., who is serving an eight-year prison term for accepting $2 million in bribes.

Murtha says he will not honor the subpoena because to testify in the trial would be "inconsistent with precedents and privileges of the House."

Whether or not Murtha is viewed as corrupt might depend on geographic perspective. To people in his district, and especially those connected to companies and nonprofits receiving millions of federal tax dollars, Murtha is likely seen as an effective legislator with seniority who brings home the bacon. To people outside the district and not connected to pet projects receiving funding, Murtha's methods appear questionable.

CREW and other groups have suggested a circular, self-serving arrangement that Murtha uses to secure multimillion-dollar contracts for defense contractors and other clients of a lobbyist firm headed by a former Murtha staffer. The recipients of the earmark contract dollars are leading contributors to Murtha's re-election campaign and also contribute to his favored nonprofit organizations.

The Capitol Hill newspaper, RollCall, worked with Taxpayers for Common Sense and looked at the money flowing into Murtha's campaign coffers and the hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks that he controls as head of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee.

Murtha is renowned, but now increasingly suspect, for his power to send defense-related contracts to his district, and also his campaign contributors and organizations run by various friends and former associates.

Roll Call noted that "every private entity that Rep. John Murtha favored with an earmark in this year's defense bill has given political money to the lawmaker."

Earmarks have become a scandal in recent years as the Republican-controlled Congress allowed the barely scrutinized spending to balloon. And a pattern linking earmark recipients to political donations suggests a pay-to-play atmosphere and the so-called "culture of corruption"that Democrats used as a campaign slogan in their successful effort to regain control of Congress in the 2006 elections.

A columnist with the Buffalo News picked up on the Roll Call story and suggested that earmark abuse was a primary reason why most Americans remain disgusted with Congress. The columnist noted that Roll Call's reporting found that the 26 groups who gave campaign contributions to Murtha received $114.5 million in taxpayer-funded projects from Murtha's appropriations committee.

More than once, Murtha has let it be known that this is how he plays the game. He famously threatened to block any earmarks from going to the district of a congressman who challenged the legitimacy of one of Murtha's projects.

Even in his own district, where the federal dollars flow, there is concern. An editorial in the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat said, "We can't accept the congressman's earmark dollars with one hand and brush off his alleged transgressions with the other. When he steps in the mud, or others throw mud at Murtha, we all get dirty."

When Democrats reclaimed control of Congress, they promised an end to earmark abuses and corruption. Murtha's success at playing the earmark game and rewarding clients of favored lobbyists and pet nonprofit organizations is something that taints Congress and the Demo-crats now in charge.