The Fog Of War

The NY Times swiftboats Connecticut Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal, who sometimes embellishes his non-service in Vietnam.  Maybe John Kerry can come down from Massachusetts and explain that people forget, they exaggerate, and anyway, what Blumenthal remembers should trump actual, tedious facts.

The Times lead:

Candidate’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ From History
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life.

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

The deferments allowed Mr. Blumenthal to complete his studies at Harvard; pursue a graduate fellowship in England; serve as a special assistant to The Washington Post’s publisher, Katharine Graham; and ultimately take a job in the Nixon White House.

In 1970, with his last deferment in jeopardy, he landed a coveted spot in the Marine Reserve, which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. He joined a unit in Washington that conducted drills and other exercises and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a Toys for Tots drive.

The Times eventually notes that some of his other comments are ambiguous, and that sometimes he tells the truth, as here:

An aide pointed out that in a different appearance this year, Mr. Blumenthal was forthright about not having gone to war. In a Senate debate in March, he responded to a question about Iran and the use of military force by saying, “Although I did not serve in Vietnam, I have seen firsthand the effects of military action, and no one wants it to be the first resort, nor do we want to mortgage the country’s future with a deficit that is ballooning out of control.”

On the other hand, they add a "serial prevaricator" touch with this swim team mystery:

On a less serious matter, another flattering but untrue description of Mr. Blumenthal’s history has appeared in profiles about him. In two largely favorable profiles, the Slate article and a magazine article in The Hartford Courant in 2004 with which he cooperated, Mr. Blumenthal is described prominently as having served as captain of the swim team at Harvard. Records at the college show that he was never on the team.

Mr. Blumenthal said he did not provide the information to reporters, was unsure how it got into circulation and was “astonished” when he saw it in print.

Let's credit an intrepid blogger, who busted Blumenthal on the swimming thing last April.  I'm green (which is not my color...).

Let me toss in one wrinkle - this is an example of what I would consider an ambiguous declaration by Blumenthal:

At a 2008 ceremony in front of the Veterans War Memorial Building in Shelton, he praised the audience for paying tribute to troops fighting abroad, noting that America had not always done so.

“I served during the Vietnam era,” he said. “I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse.”

Ahh!  He served, just not overseas.  And he may even have been taunted while in uniform.  But that notion was somewhat controversial, at least among a certain type of lefties - Jerry Lembcke, a Vietnam war protestor turned professor, insisted that anti-war protestors were never anti-soldier.  He was clearly inspired by the Gulf War and was engaging in a politicized attempt to rehabilitate the anti-war movement; he caught some traction during the Iraq War but Jack Shafer of Slate, his biggest booster, eventually backed down.

However, proper libs like Krugman never got the memo, so Blumenthal may take fire on this from his left flank.

Last thought - it is nearly impossible to go to a charitable event in Connecticut without meeting Richard Blumenthal.  A number of good friends of mine consider him to be intelligent, honorable, and indefatigable in support of their causes.  So he may survive this, and maybe he ought to.

SPELLCHEK, THAT UNSTEADY ALLY:

From Matt Yglesias:

For quite a long time now people have been urging Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to run for hire office...

"For hire" as in, "private sector"?  His time may be coming!

Comments

[macphisto]

"A number of good friends of mine consider him to be intelligent, honorable, and indefatigable in support of their causes."

and Heydrich loved to play the violin.

[Danube of Thought]

Dude is slippery.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Sounds like a job for Mary Mapes.

[Greybeard]

"So he may survive this, and maybe he ought to."
No.
If we truly want to change politics, we must start making it painful for liars.

[Good Morning, Connecticut]

Embellishing works for Obama, why not for Blumenthal?
====================

[narciso]

He's more a McDermott, who was working his Vietnam counseling all the way from San Diego

[Danube of Thought]

His Dem opponent calls him a coward and a liar. Works for me.

[I'll bet it's something really absurd, but in Hawai'i.]

Snap, it's Baron Munchausen on the birth certificate.
=======================

[bgates]

Clearly he's not honorable. As to whether an intelligent, dishonorable man who is indefatigable in support of Democrat causes can be elected Senator from Connecticut, the answer for the past two generations has been 'yes'.

[anduril]

Thanks, TM. Nice lead in to the second thoughts of a prominent liberal hawk on the Iraq invasion re his core convictions.

Peter Beinart has written what's being touted as an important article in the NYRB: The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment. Beinart is a long time supporter of Israel and was a leading liberal supporter of Bush's Iraq invasion. Michael Tomasky summarizes Beinart's "main point" thusly:

Beinart's main point for me is that US Jewish leadership, by adopting a policy of supporting Israel at all costs, no matter what the government, no matter what it does, has completely lost faith with a bedrock principle upon which Israel was founded, more on which below. Also, that it is badly serving its own cause and Israel's and has lost touch with younger American Jews, who care about Israel far less than this older generation does. Finally (I guess there were several main points), that Israel's hard line has made the question of Palestinian suffering one that Jews in Israel and the US needn't even bother thinking about.

Re that theme of suffering, Beinart writes:

In 2004, in an effort to prevent weapons smuggling from Egypt, Israeli tanks and bulldozers demolished hundreds of houses in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. Watching television, a veteran Israeli commentator and politician named Tommy Lapid saw an elderly Palestinian woman crouched on all fours looking for her medicines amid the ruins of her home. He said she reminded him of his grandmother.

In that moment, Lapid captured the spirit that is suffocating within organized American Jewish life. To begin with, he watched....

Of course, Israel—like the United States—must sometimes take morally difficult actions in its own defense. But they are morally difficult only if you allow yourself some human connection to the other side. Otherwise, security justifies everything. The heads of AIPAC and the Presidents' Conference should ask themselves what Israel's leaders would have to do or say to make them scream "no." After all, Lieberman is foreign minister; Effi Eitam is touring American universities; settlements are growing at triple the rate of the Israeli population; half of Israeli Jewish high school students want Arabs barred from the Knesset. If the line has not yet been crossed, where is the line?

What infuriated critics about Lapid's comment was that his grandmother died at Auschwitz.

Beinart closes with these words:

“Too many years I lived in the warm embrace of institutionalized elusiveness and was a part of it,” writes Avraham Burg. “I was very comfortable there.” I know; I was comfortable there too. But comfortable Zionism has become a moral abdication. Let’s hope that Luntz’s students, in solidarity with their counterparts at Sheikh Jarrah, can foster an uncomfortable Zionism, a Zionism angry at what Israel risks becoming, and in love with what it still could be. Let’s hope they care enough to try.

Beinart also has an interview re his article at Tablet Magazine: Beinart Speaks to Tablet. In the interview he makes a commonsense but important point--perhaps he got it from anonymously perusing the JOM forum:

Tablet: I think maybe the most provocative sentence in your essay is, “Not only does the organized American Jewish community mostly avoid public criticism of the Israeli government, it tries to prevent others from leveling such criticism as well.” Could you clarify how exactly it does this?

Beinart: I think by very, very harshly attacking organizations that are willing to be critical of Israel. It clearly does that. We have free speech, but I think the agenda is clearly to basically try to get human rights
organizations to carve out an exemption for Israel in which only the tamest of criticism is permitted. I think that we should expect international human rights organizations to be able to be as critical as Israeli human rights organizations. If they’re not self-hating, their international analogue isn’t anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, unless there’s real evidence that there’s real animus.

So, OK, he's still a liberal, but maybe he'll reconsider that next.

[maryrose]

My brother also got caught up in the draft movement and served honorably in Vietnam.This is despicable news to me!

[Danube of Thought]

A guy from Connecticut hammers him in the Atlantic.

[narciso]

Beinart has been proven to be clueless on every subject of note, at least in the last two years, I guess that's why Tina Brown keeps him employed. I always wondered how did
the Liberals get their clocks cleaned by the
National Party for the better part of 50 years
I begin to understand why.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Richard Blumenthal, a fortunate son.

[Clarice]

You think gathering toys for tots is childs' play?

[Rick Ballard]

Perhaps his occasional lapses into prevarication are due to PTSD (pre traumatic stress syndrome)? IOW - his imagination of what might have happened have affected his grasp on reality.

A number of good friends of mine consider him to be intelligent, honorable, and indefatigable in support of their causes. So he may survive this, and maybe he ought to.

Can any of the good friends provide a comparison between his "indefatigable support" of "good" causes and that of Bernie Madoff? We have some decent evidence concerning the fact that he's a self aggrandizing liar but is he also a thief who taints everything with which he has contact?

[narciso]

Why does Joshua Green always come to these stories late, shouldn't someone have looked
into Blumenthal's record months ago, or Massa
before he made a bigger fool of himself. Or is the only spelunking allowed at the Atlantic
the kind engaged by Sullivan

[Appalled]

bgates:

I thought you guys liked Lieberman.

[jimmyk]

I think the agenda is clearly to basically try to get human rights organizations to carve out an exemption for Israel in which only the tamest of criticism is permitted.

Considering that most of these so-called "human rights organizations" only allow themselves the tamest of criticism of Israel's enemies (and of leftist regimes), perhaps the agenda is just more equal treatment. At the moment Israel gets singled out for criticism when it goes out of its way (and takes great risks) to keep to a higher standard than other countries in similar situations.

[narciso]

Does it take Yale and Oxford to bleed all the commonsense out of you, or is it already a 'glass half empty' situation.

[narciso]

No it's not, because the zakat, the hawalas,
and other enterprises like CAIR, ISNA, never
get 1/100th of the scrutiny. They are doing
their best to purposefully kill innocent women
and children. We like the Israelis practice
'courageous restraint' and look what that gets
us, when they have Nazi memorabilia afficianados like Garlascos, on staff

[jimmyk]

If we truly want to change politics, we must start making it painful for liars.

While I agree with this, I'm not sure I want to have complete zero tolerance. Much as I hate to admit it, bb has a point that Reagan and others have been guilty of misstating or misrepresenting their past. Politics is always going to attract egotists and self-aggrandizers. They should be called on it, but I'm not sure they should automatically be barred from public life.

[Captain Hate]

bb has a point that Reagan and others have been guilty of misstating or misrepresenting their past.

What point was that? I'm not aware of any quote where Reagan claimed to have been at Auschwitz and can't find anything when I google it. I figured everybody was ignoring him as not worthy of refuting.

[anduril]

Beinart has been proven to be clueless on every subject of note, at least in the last two years...

IOW, you agreed with him up to two years ago. He was always a liberal, y'know.

they have Nazi memorabilia afficianados like Garlascos, on staff

At NYRB?

[MarkO]

If he had the honor he claims for himself, he would resign the race.

I'm surprised that TM did not suggest that the crack research team that unearthed this (and just how hard could that have been?) should be sent to Hawaii.

On Dasher, on Dancer . . ..

[Suspicious Lurker]

Anyone else wondering if The Times put this story out now because they knew it was going to break and they didn't want it breaking after the primary filing deadline -- one week from today?

The suspicion can't help but obtrude, since it's so unlike them to turn on one of their own. Leopards, spots, etc.

[matt]

Woody Allen tells us today that Obama should be given dictatorial powers for a few years.

1 - he is Jewish.

2 - Obama is the most unfriendly president towards Israel in history.

There seems to be a complete disconnect between reality and liberalism these days. Whether it is making things up or simply ignoring the facts, it is a disease that threatens to kill the Republic.

[Buttered]

Caught this news item on NBC's Today show news this morning.

Did every notice how they refused to ID him as the Democrat in the primary race?

NBC = Nothing But Crap

[Buttered]

Sorry I meant to include this in the above post.

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=Democrat+Senate+Candidate+Blumenthal+Lied+About+Vietnam+Record

“Democrat Senate Candidate Blumenthal Lied About Vietnam Record”

[narciso]

The McMahon team gave them the tip, there was no actual research on their part, the passive
voice in the headline was the tipoff, they really didn't want to even broach this, with
a ten foot pole.

[Janet]

You are too generous JimmyK. If a politician lied in the past and has set the record straight...that is one thing. If a politician is actively living an ongoing lie he/she should be booted. They shouldn't be our leaders.
IMO that is one of our big problems...we have very few honorable leaders. At least the Republicans usually get rid of the worst of their own. There is a little bit of a standard. The Dems. have none.

[narciso]

'It's a travesty of two mockeries of a sham'
matt, he did it in the Vanguardia, which makes
the Times seem almost sensible, by comparison

[Neo]

AP -- Two weeks ago in Southern California, Rodney Alcala was convicted of murdering four women and a girl between 1977 and 1979. Today, CNN reports that during that period the serial killer was the winning bachelor on an episode of The Dating Game. He had already been convicted of raping an 8-year-old girl.

I guess he came off as intelligent, honorable, and indefatigable as well.

[Dave (in MA)]

Appalling wrote: I thought you guys liked Lieberman.

I won't pretend to speak for bgates, but I assumed that the two generations reference applied to the specific Senate seat currently held by the non-dead half of the waitress sandwich and previously held by the McGovernite Ribicoff.

[Captain Hate]

The McMahon team

As in Vince and Linda McMahon? Wow, I have really negative feelings about the wisdom of having somebody from that POS family in a position of responsibility. Ever check out the suicide rates of WWE's roided up stable? The Mickey Roarke film wasn't an exaggeration.

[jimmyk]

I'm not aware of any quote where Reagan claimed to have been at Auschwitz and can't find anything when I google it.

CH, it's true I'm relying on memory and 2nd hand knowledge. Apparently there are stories related to this (not necessarily Auschwitz) in Morris's bio of Reagan. Granted most of the people who cite this are bats**t lefties like Cockburn, but I thought it was not really in dispute. Perhaps someone who has read Morris can chime in.

[bgates]

Hell, appalled, we like you compared to Lamont. Besides, Lieberman can hardly be considered a Democratic stalwart after he turned on the Baathists to side with the Republicans.

[maryrose]

TM
maybe he should survive? I don't think so. I agree it was dropped now so they can substitute a Lamont or someone else ala New Jersey and Torricelli. They still have Lautenberg as the replacement senator.

[Captain Hate]

jimmyk, I thought it was pretty common knowledge that RR's poor vision kept him from being assigned overseas and he spent his entire service career in the states making films for the war effort. Wiki has enough in-house lefties that would be all over that if any quote had even insinuated otherwise. As I've stated previously about Cockburn, he writes very vividly.

[narciso]

When googling for that quote, I come across this gem which indicates the caliber of scholarship, in the LUN

[bgates]

Hell, appalled, we like you compared to Lamont.

Anyway, Lieberman can hardly be considered a Democratic stalwart after he broke with the party on its defining principle of the past 10 years, solidarity with Saddam and the Baathists.

Dave, I meant two generations of Dodds. The elder was sleazy enough to become one of six people censured by the Senate during the 20th century.

[Rick Ballard]

Dave (in MA),

"two generations" probably refers to the censured Dodd pere in conjunction with the rotted fruit falling from the tree this year. Ribicoff is another fine example of the CT tolerance for stench in high office though. Blumenthal really may be the fitting successor to the thief currently tarnishing the halls of the Senate.

[narciso]

The Senior Dodd is still twice the man of his son, who's a disaster on the ethical and policy front

[Clarice]

The Corner:

Souder made a video on the importance of abstinence education with his alleged mistress.

[narciso]

Doh, anyways in the LUN this might be the real reason he was forced out in the end

[Clarice]

Which secret nugget did you have in mind, narciso?

[narciso]

His strong antiCommunist stance, his rivalry with Fulbright over Vietnam and Latin America

[Ann]

Senator Dodd has spoken:

"Dick Blumenthal and I have known each other for almost 40 years, and I've always known him to be the most honorable of people," Dodd said, just outside his office. "And nothing I read says anything differently about Dick Blumenthal. He's going to be a great United States Senator in my view. He's been a terrific Attorney General. So this is a bump but frankly I think that he's handled it well and as I said, I've known him to be nothing but the most honorable of human beings in public life."

Everything is fine now.

[Clarice]

Possibly. OTOH his financial peculations seemed so obvious and the vote against him was almost unanimous.

How did Senator Jackson vote? If he voted against censure, you might be right.

[NK]

Hey Tom--

we disagree again. BLUMENTHAL = EMPTY SUIT.

In a world full of lying useless politicians, Blumenthal stands out as a particular empty suit. He is Connecticut's own Mark Green.

[Ignatz]

--Souder made a video on the importance of abstinence education with his alleged mistress.--

Is that, he made a video about abstinence that his mistress helped him make or a video about abstinence with his mistress?
If the latter he should resign for general incompetence.

[Mister X]

Once again, the librul NYT covers up for a Dem ... hey, wait a minute.

Think if the shoe was on the other foot Fox would expose one of their own? Not on your life.

[Sally]

That he's been running around Connecticut all these years being the big veterans champ while stealing their glory as his own, that's breathtakingly arrogant even for a Democratic politician. As do so many of his class and generation, he figures those guys are too stupid to know they're getting played yet again.

[narciso]

On balance, if he had been an empty suit, he would have been 'mostly harmless,' as it is, his stances of AGW, the Microsoft suit, immunity for telecommunications, among other
issues make him very toxic

[Appalled]

Mister X:

Remember the GWB drunk driving conviction story that probably cost him the 2000 popular vote.

That was a Fox scoop.

[Ignatz]

OT, but we've occasionally discussed whether lumber prices are a proxy for anything significant. Let's hope not as they have slid over 25% since mid April as this delightfully depressing chart shows.

[Comanche Voter]

Hey Blumenthal got a varsity letter from the girls at Radcliffe--in the "breast stroke"-- while he was at Harvard. I guess he believed that meant he was captain of the Harvard swim team.

I think we call the Blumenthal prevarication "falsifying the resume`". It happens a lot with politicians. Do you accept the lies to get to someone who is otherwise a fairly diligent public servant?
I don't know--but if I were a voter seeing his name on the ballot,I'd sure look to find some reason to vote for his opponent.

Of course if it came down to a choice between say Chris Dodd and Richard Blumenthal, I'd be hard pressed to vote for either.

[Stu707]

"Think if the shoe was on the other foot Fox would expose one of their own? Not on your life."

Let's see. Who was it that exposed George W. Bush's DUI conviction a few days before the '00 election? Was it:

a) The NY Times
b) Fox News

Hint: it wasn't the NYT.

[Jane]

Here is the finale installment of the Portugal adventure - until we get the pics!

[jimmyk]

As I've stated previously about Cockburn, he writes very vividly.

It's true that even though the claim pops up repeatedly in all the usual lefty sites ("The Nation", Huffington, etc.), one can't find a direct quote, and often it's the same secondary source being repeated again and again (what qualifies for scholarship on the left, I suppose). So, bb, since you made the claim, perhaps you know of a primary source?

Here's none other than that other Blumenthal getting a bit more specific:

Reagan, though he once told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir that he had personally liberated concentration camps, in fact served during World War II at the Hal Roach Studios....

I wonder if what he really said was that he had seen the liberation (on film). That's consistent with the story by his son Ron in the LUN.

[Rick Ballard]

Narciso,

Dodd pere fit the early Daley/Kennedy model of stealing everything not welded to the structure. Dodd fils fits the later Daley/Kennedy model of stealing everything not welded to the structure.

Both the Dodds did very well by servicing their constituents in every conceivable manner. It may be that they are the best of that particular lot. Illinois and Massachusetts are flat broke while Connecticut can apparently afford tolerate further looting.

[narciso]

Ad Sid Vicious, how can we forget him, I try but he comes up like a bad penny, and Max
seems to have followed the tradition

[PDinDetroit]

OT

Info at LUN on Arizona Immigration Protest at Senator McCain's Office.

Appears we are now calling "undocumented immigrants" as "undocumented activists". Guess the "undocumented democrat" title isn't too far off the mark.

[bgates]

Dodd fils fits the later Daley/Kennedy model of stealing everything not welded to the structure, while inveighing against the ecological catastrophe of welding so more stuff can be stolen.

[matt]

does anybody find it odd that none of the national "leaders" protesting the Arizona legislation have actually read it? LUN

[bgates]

jimmy, that story Ron Reagan tells of his dad showing him a film reel from Auschwitz when he was a kid is interesting in light of this from Salon:
In a biography of Reagan he wrote later, Cannon says that in 1981 Reagan told a similar, if different, version of the story. In this account, Reagan did not actually go to any camps but had seen a secret military film of some, which he saved in case later on people didn't believe those kinds of atrocities had been committed. But, Cannon says, there was never any such secret film.

Only a secret to Cannon, apparently.

[bgates]

Matt, if it weren't for the teleprompter I'd doubt they could read at all.

[anduril]

Interesting.

nate says Peter Beinart has been wrong about everything--for the last two years. Maybe that should be revised to: since Israel's attack on Gaza.

As of just one year ago Beinart was barnstorming America, giving keynote speeches for AIPAC in company with Michael Oren--

March 29th, 2009, Portland
April 03, 2009, Chicago

--yes, AIPAC is full of liberals like Beinart, as is obvious from all the liberal supporters of AIPAC at JOM.

So what led him to this reexamination of Zionism? He explains in the Tablet Magazine interview that I linked above:

Tablet: What prompted the essay? Why now, when you previously have not written much about Israel?

Beinart: Having kids definitely played a role. I think it made me think about not just my Zionist identity, but what kind of Zionism was available to them. And the more I thought about that, the more I began to worry. I also think that we all operate at intellectual levels and emotional levels, and for me I just decided … There was this story in the New York Times about the Gaza War, about the house in Gaza where they found the children whose parents were dead. What you may find, if you do have kids one day, you are affected at an emotional level more strongly by certain things, in a way you may not be entirely prepared for. I think that’s a good thing, it’s primordial. I know people develop all kinds of shrewd and sophisticated and clever ways of explaining anything that happens, but when I read the story I just thought I was not in the mood to try in some clever way to explain it away. And the fact that I felt I was supposed to just sickened me a little bit.

That’s not to say there are never gonna be civilian casualties in war. But knowing the people who are running Israel now. … The amazing thing about Netanyahu’s book, which is a pretty long book, is there is not a single word of human empathy for the suffering of the Palestinians or Arabs. It was for me such a chilling book in its willingness to essentially. … there was something so inhuman about it, I felt. I just felt like that wasn’t something that I wanted to apologize for.

I guess what he's saying is that at a certain point basic humanity trumped his Zionism.

[Sue]

I figure the Reagan quote is about as reliable as the Bush quote where he supposedly told someone God told him to go to war in Iraq. You will never convince a lefty that 1) Bush didn't say that and 2) Bush wasn't hearing voices.

[narciso]

Since I can't find the original story, I'll
say it didn't happen, that's par for the course nowadays. Cannon was regarded as a fair
reporter back then, possibly along with Hugh
Sidey, I can't think of a comparable example
now, among the main stream, possibly Von Driehle at Time

[jimmyk]

bgates, Cannon seems to think he can prove a negative--about a "secret". Reagan certainly got the early version of the Palin treatment from the MSM and pseudo-intellectuals. My goal in bringing up the story was really to see if it could be authenticated. I won't hold my breath. In any case, it sounds like whatever was said was in a private conversation, so it can't be verified, and is quite a bit different from a public statement like Blumenthal's.

[PDinDetroit]

does anybody find it odd that none of the national "leaders" protesting the Arizona legislation have actually read it?

There you go again thinking rationally and logically. I find it odd that you find it odd. :)

Nothing should surprise us anymore from this current administration. I mean that from both definitions that can be taken from the statement.

[narciso]

Ah yes the Times, the same folk who showed the dying moments of an American soldier in Iraq, without informing the family, who jump
to the conclusion that all WOT veterans are
potential criminals, who interview criminals
nabbed by Guiliani's tough policies and paint
them as victims, yes I trust their judgement
implicitly

[Jane]

I think Blumenthal is not helping himself - he is bragging on his decision to join the military - which came after 5 deferments. Doesn't sound like he is coming clean. Plus he looks just like Eliot (1 t) Spitzer so that alone should disqualify him.

But it looks like he is staying in. We will see what Connecticut is made of.

[DrJ]

early Daley/Kennedy model of stealing everything not welded to the structure.

Well, according to the Daley biographies I've read, Daley was not really that interested in money. He was interested in power. So I don't think his stealing was that large, at least not for him personally.

The rest of the machine? That's another matter.

[Jane]

Blumenthal is implying he had nothing to do with his 5 deferments. Gawd he is really coming across as a sleaze.

[bgates]

I don't think his stealing was that large, at least not for him personally.

I can imagine Chicago pols using exactly that as a defense. "My alleged stealing was not that large, at least not for me personally."

[narciso]

He applied for them, didn't he, but I guess that's only an issue when Cheney is involved

[bgates]

A number of good friends of mine consider him to be intelligent, honorable, and indefatigable in support of their causes.

Then he does belong in the Senate, if Blum's an honorable man.
So are they all, all honorable men.

[Dave (in MA)]

librul

Ho ho ho - the reason that's so funny is 'cause you like, used different letters to spell it 'n' stuff.

[Sue]

Blumenthal did admit he added to the "confusion".

[Janet]

I like your line Jane - " We will see what Connecticut is made of."

[Tom Maguire]

The Reagan story and "real" story seems to be this:

Joan Didion’s article [NYR, December 18, 1997] repeats an erroneous story about Ronald Reagan and the Holocaust that first circulated in the 1980s and recently has been recycled in a New Yorker article by Michael Korda and a Washington Post column by Richard Cohen. The correct version appears in George Shultz’s book Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State, in the chapter on President Reagan’s visit to the cemetery at Bitburg (p. 550). To be fair to the former president, I believe that the story recounted by Mr. Shultz should be put before your readers: During the latter part of World War II, Reagan’s job involved viewing film shot by military cameramen and war correspondent photographers. He assembled the selected shots into briefing films for senior officers. When he saw the first footage of the horror inside the concentration camps, filmed at the time the death camps were liberated, he was immensely shocked. Against regulations, he kept copies of the films because, he said, the scenes were so appalling that some people would later deny that it could have been so bad—or that it had taken place at all. Four years after the war, Reagan recounted, a guest at his house for dinner said he found the stories impossible to believe—it couldn’t have happened that way. So Ronald Reagan got out the can of film and ran it for his skeptical guest. When Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir made his first visit to Washington during the Reagan administration, the president told this story to Shamir, who was deeply moved by it. Upon his return to Israel, Shamir told the story to Israeli journalists, who reported it in the Hebrew language press. English translations were picked up by American reporters. As the story emerged in American newspapers, it had become garbled, maintaining Ronald Reagan had said that he was present at the liberation of the camps as part of a U.S. army film crew. The president had said no such thing. But the critics then cited it as an example of Reagan’s inability to distinguish fact from fantasy or real life from an actor’s role that he had played or wished he had played. But I had heard the true version. I knew that the president back then had, in his own way, created his own Holocaust memorial.

Truth is still putting its boots on, I guess.

[maryrose]

Confusion? What confusion? the guy's originally a draft dodger and then he's a combat evader. How does one square that equation? A sleazeball par excellance!

[narciso]

That seems much more plausible, and I remember
the hackjob Didion did on my town in combination with Rieff, who would later spin
the 'Iraq war planning'

[Captain Hate]

Thanks TM for clearing that up

[narciso]

This tweet from Doc Zero, really puts things in perspective

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

What is happening at typhuspad? It swallowed three of my comments on this since the story appeared last night on HotAir. They (the comments) were good too.

[Sue]

Tom,

Thanks. I figured it was a translation garble, just as Bush's remarks were a translation garble. Truth doesn't even know where its boots are anymore.

[Porchlight]

Truth doesn't even know where its boots are anymore.

Excellent and so true, especially where bunkerbuster is concerned.

[Rick Ballard]

DrJ,

What difference does it make if Daley used stolen money to purchase political power or an Irish cottage?

The Capone and Gambino operation under Gotti were cleaner.

[Cecil Turner]

Hey, did bunkerbuster's posting disappear? (Not that I'm complaining.)

In fact, if so, it'd be awfully nice if the same thing might happen to a certain anti-Semitical serial solipsist above.

[Captain Hate]

Actually CT, when anduril steers clear of the Jew-baiting and other attention-mongering fixations, I find some (33% max) of his distractions (everything is OT) interesting enough to justify his presence.

[Ignatz]

--Actually CT, when anduril steers clear of the Jew-baiting and other attention-mongering fixations...

....there's damn little left.

[EBJ]

I think he ought to get a mulligan. If the electorate can overlook Sloe Joe's re-writing of Lebanon's history (where Clinton cast Hezbollah out of Lebanon, only to be returned to the country by the half evil, half incompetent GW Bush) what's a little embellishment on an individual's biography? If re-writing the history of a COUNTRY is okay, how can it not be okay to re-write the history of an INDIVIDUAL? If anything he didn't go far enough (see Kerry, John).

[JM Hanes]

TM:

"A number of good friends of mine consider him to be intelligent, honorable, and indefatigable in support of their causes.  So he may survive this, and maybe he ought to."

And what might those causes be, I wonder? What ever happened to it's not the sex causes, it's the lies?

Lying about wartime military service is as dishonorable as political lying goes, IMO. But then I don't live in Connecticut, and didn't vote for the indefatigable Dodd. Lying about a swim team may be a lesser evil, but when Blumenthal played "a pivotal role in one of the biggest college athletics stories of the decade," it starts looking like it fits a larger pattern. This sounds familiar too, doesn't it?

In an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Blumenthal said that he had never accepted PAC money. Blumenthal accepted over $220,000 in PAC money for the first fiscal quarter of 2010, according to his FEC report. When challenged on the discrepancy, his campaign released a statement explaining that he was referring only to previous campaigns.

Even Wikipedia, which desperately tries to give him the benefit of the doubt in a now familiar passive voice circumlocution (he did not serve in Vietnam "as has been claimed"), has trouble serving up record otherwise unblemished by calculated deception:

In 2007, Blumenthal became involved in the controversy over a botched reconstruction project of the Interstate 84 in Waterbury and Cheshire. The original contractor for the job went out of business and it was later revealed hundreds of storm drains were improperly installed. After the U.S. Department of Transportation threatened to withhold funds on April 24, 2007. Blumenthal announced a lawsuit by the end of the day against the former contractor and an engineering firm that inspected the project. Blumenthal had already settled all claims with the project's bonding company a month earlier for only $17.5 million of the project's $54 million cost.

What price honor? It certainly took Chris Dodd a long time to exceed the going rate in Connecticut.

[JM Hanes]

Captain Hate:

"Actually CT, when anduril steers clear of the Jew-baiting and other attention-mongering fixations, I find some (33% max) of his distractions (everything is OT) interesting enough to justify his presence."

Subtracting the ad hominems (15%) and the moral preening (15%), leaves 3%, which pretty much covers the links to sources which speak for themselves.

[Clarice]

Well, jmg, aside from the fact that he's a congenital liar and an apparent crooked attorney general and politician, what do have against Blumenthal? I mean, really...

[jimmyk]

Thanks, TM, for the Reagan story. Now I'm wondering about the claim that both Shamir and Marvin Hier confirmed the story that Reagan had said he was actually there. I was surprised to discover that Shamir is still alive, though at 95 and in poor health. But Hier is only 70 and might verify.

Given that this smear of Reagan is likely to reemerge in the MSM, I'm wondering if this is worthy of an AT article. Clarice?

[Captain Hate]

Subtracting the ad hominems (15%) and the moral preening (15%), leaves 3%, which pretty much covers the links to sources which speak for themselves.

In truth the best service he provides is sifting through the sludge at those cesspools to find the extremely rare kernel of information. Some of those sites are the online equivalents to Love Canal.