Rep. Patrick Kennedy said he doesn't regret his vote for Nancy Pelosi's candidate for house majority leader Rep. John Murtha, despite Murtha's loss to Rep. Steny Hoyer, of Illinois.

The vote alligns Kennedy with Pelosi, who, as the Speaker of the House, will be the most powerful member of the House of Representatives in the next Congress. And it also alligns him with Murtha, who will head the powerful defense appropriations subcommittee.

But Kennedy supported Murtha's candidacy for another reason.

"I felt that the message that the American people sent on Election Day was they wanted a different course than what the President was offering," Kennedy said in an interview yesterday.

"And I felt that they wanted a voice of opposition that could stand up to the Whitehouse and I know of no one that the Whitehouse fears more than Jack Murtha in debating this issue, because he’s seen war himself, and no one can lecture him about being a patriot or not because he served his country."

"Bush and Cheney and all the rest were far from the battlefield when Jack Murtha was in Vietnam getting shot at."

-- Projo.com staff writer Steve Peoples