If you read my whole post, other than the snippet you quoted, I think you’ll see that I am not at all indifferent to Blumenthal’s “misstatements.”
However, as a resident of Connecticut who has voted for him before, I have had more to judge him by than this sole issue. The major reason this news is so shocking in the state of Connecticut is because of Blumenthal’s squeaky-clean reputation up to this point. He has had a long political career. He served as a U.S. Attorney back in the 1970s, served in the Connecticut House of Representatives and the Connecticut State Senate in the 1980s, and has been the Connecticut AG since 1991.
I will note that in many speeches, Blumenthal has explicitly stated that he did NOT serve in Vietnam–so it’s not like he has been consistently lying about his supposed service for years.
All this being said, the jury is still out in my own mind. His misstatements have certainly brought him down several notches in my estimation, and I have not yet decided if I will continue to support him. I will probably make my decision based on how he handles the issue in the days and weeks to come.
I would think the people he owes an apology to would be the citizens he deceived in making those statements. It never occurred to me that he should apologize to “right wingers”.
But to get back to the rest of your post, I think that when you consider that after having received five deferments and then signing up with a reserve unit, he was pretty clearly doing everything he could to avoid being sent to Vietnam. For him to then come along later and make false claims and deliberate implications to the effect that he had served there is especially egregious, IMO.
Would you have then come along decades later and pretended to be a Vietnam vet, when in reality you were doing everything you could to avoid having become that very thing?
The problem isn’t that he dodged the draft by joining the reserves; the problem is that he has (on occasion, it seems) tried to portray himself as the opposite of what he really was. He dodged the draft in order to avoid Vietnam, and then pretended to have served there on certain occasions when he felt it would be politically beneficial.
I dunno. Perhaps he felt the gatherings were small and/or inconsequential enough when he made false claims that no one would find out and then was more truthful when under a larger spotlight. After all, Hillary didn’t claim Bosnian sniper fire in every speech she gave either.
It becomes an issue in combination with other behavior (e.g. dodging the draft while being in favor of sending somebody else to fight; dodging the draft and then denying having done so).
In lighter news, another righteous righty has taken a transfer from the family values milk run to the shame train express. Probably already reported on this board, but fun to see.
I have shame. I am ashamed that the Democratic Party’s candidate in the Connecticut senate race has been shown willing to embrace what I regard as stolen valor. I will not defend his actions.
I will, however, still hope that he wins the election (not that I consider it likely, at this point). And I also hope for a Democrat to be elected governor of Connecticut, at which time I will support efforts to have Blumenthal resign. At this time, I cannot consider it acceptable for another Republican to enter the Senate.
I understand jokes. But I haven’t heard of any where St. Gabriel is manning (archangeling?) the gates of Heaven in St. Peter’s stead. Or of any where one of the candidates for admittance to Paradise begins his petition by telling a joke.
Anyway, I’m going to have to ask that you tell me the rest of this one; it sounds really intriguing.
Yeah, but I haven’t heard many jokes of the sort where the speaker starts off saying, “When I was a horse walking into a bar…” or “When I was one of three golfers who died and…”
:o (for the purposes of this post, that is intended to be an “exasperated sigh” smiley) I really wish people would make sure they’re up to speed before they throw this in Bricker’s face.
He DID vote for Obama, at last recounting. And I find his recounting to be reliable.
Short version: Blumenthal has had approval ratings of around 80% for years now as Connecticut’s AG. He’s had a huge lead in the polls against his only Democratic challenger, Merrick Alpert. (He led by 81-6% in March.) He’s also been the overwhelming favorite to win the race, with March polls having him leading his likely Republican opponents by over 30 percentage points. If this story blows over, he still will likely win the race. However, he’s now a lot more vulnerable than he was a few days ago.
Also, this latest scandal also appears to be backfiring on Linda McMahon, the leading Republican challengers, who appears to be looking a bit too gleeful at digging up incriminating video on Blumenthal. The person who may benefit most from the scandal is the other Republican challenger, Rob Simmons, who actually is a war veteran.
ETA: In a poll taken today, Blumenthal’s lead over McMahon has shrunk to single digits, and he leads Simmons by only 11 points.
Really? How did I not know that? Well, shut my mouth.
Nonetheless, my point stand. Because presumably he had plenty of good reasons to vote against Obama but was swayed in a tough decision. And I don’t think it would be fair to say “(whatever the issues are in which, for Bricker, Obama came out second best) don’t mean **** to Bricker”.
Obviously this is a totally tangential semantic side argument at this point. I’m just irked by the insulting dismissiveness of the “don’t mean ****” phraseology. There are plenty of times when people have to make decisions where there are strong arguments or data points on both sides, and they have to pick one option over the other. Just because they pick one doesn’t mean the arguments for the other one “don’t mean ****” to them.
The idea that a WWE executive is running for office as a Republican is pretty amusing, especially given the WWE’s ongoing battle with the Brent Bozell and the Parents’ Television Council, among other censorship lobbies.
