New Haven Independent

posted by: selam on May 17, 2010  10:53pm

everything about this is so sad.

posted by: Kob on May 17, 2010  11:39pm

How profoundly disappointing. And how odd this allegation did not surface until now.

If this is at all true, then I cannot see, absent some miracle explanation, how he can continue in this race.

Separate, it is interesting. These so called misstatements about Vietnam service by people in the public eye do not seem rare but then perhaps they are. Does it indicate some profound personal regret about not having served?

posted by: Hood Rebel on May 18, 2010  12:21am

Saw this NY Times Article this evening.  This whole thing is just downright bizarre. Blumenthal comes off like a really good guy. This alleged behavior makes no sense. Hopefully he can provide a full honest explanation and all will be forgiven..hopefully

posted by: Henry Berry on May 18, 2010  12:35am

Blumenthal’s facade will crack more as the campaign heats up. He hasn’t even started to address the politicalization and criminalization of the state’s attorney system which went on with his knowledge (because I informed him of this) during his time as attorney general. If the media ever gets the nerve and skills to bring this into the open, Blumenthal’s campaign will collapse. My exposure of much of this can be found in postings and my ebook at my blog/website.

posted by: luke on May 18, 2010  3:47am

.. I served in Vietnam and I am appalled ...

posted by: Maybe Merick on May 18, 2010  7:16am

Paul, did Morning Joe just rely heavily on your reporting?  As I read, they spoke! Congrats!

posted by: William Kurtz on May 18, 2010  8:05am

Disappointing news.  What on earth makes people think that this kind of thing won’t get out?

posted by: Threefifths on May 18, 2010  8:32am

As I said,He reminds me of tricky Dick Nixon.

posted by: Anton on May 18, 2010  8:49am

I find it interesting that the Times scooped this story, and not Connecticut’s journalism community. I mean, when you consider the number of years that Blumenthal’s been in the spotlight. Wow!

posted by: mike on May 18, 2010  9:08am

Your article is strange.  This news doesn’t help Simmons any more than it helps McMahon or Schiff or anybody else. It mostly simply destroys Blumenthal.  People don’t suddenly want a true Vietnam vet for Senator.  They just DO NOT want someone now proven to be a self-absorbed opportunistic liar. 
And what a devastating indictment of the CT media who missed this story….

posted by: pat on May 18, 2010  9:36am

Once again we the people have to be reminded that behind the glossy images, our political leaders are fallible, imperfect human beings.
    Despite my concerns when Blumenthal sponsored a state bill to ban flag burning after the US Supreme Court determined it to be protected speech, the Attorney General has created a record of advocacy on many issues, including the environment, that have earned him the respect of Connecticut’s residents.
      It seems to be an occupational hazard that some political leaders feel the need to enhance their credentials by making false claims to create a more heroic persona.
      Do the voters throw away years of respectable and admirable achievement for these lies, these character flaws?
      The Vietnam War was a disaster that my generation couldn’t stop. Many of the fiercest advocates of ongoing military interventions were beneficiaries of deferments that protected the upper classes. Not wanting to die in a stupid, pointless war (thank you, Dr. Kissinger) is nothing to condemn in my code of ethics.
      All politicians are required to play to the masses and veterans are a loyal group. No doubt many will stand with Mr. Blumenthal and choose to forgive him.
      I will resist the urge to condemn this man for his lies and disregard the honorable work he has done.
      Accountability is required in these situations, but not a public hanging.

posted by: Jim Clark on May 18, 2010  9:37am

I’m no huge fan of Blumenthal, but this story reflects the hyperbole that is apparently necessary to succeed in the newspaper business. More importantly, it leaves out the context of the draft during the years in question. Nearly every college student received four deferrments, one for each year. Nearly every grad student received another deferrment. That would account for the “five military deferrments” that Hernandez crows about. The deferrment system was unfair to those who could not attend college, but it was written into Selective Service law.
The issue here should be whether Blumenthal lied, which the tape indicates he did, NOT whether he took deferrments commonly taken by anyone in his situation. Of course, all politicians lie these days, apparently. It didn’t hurt GW Bush in his second campaign, and by then, everyone knew his administration was lying regularly. Ms. McMahon brought this out too soon. It will pass, I think.
—jim clark
new haven

posted by: Andrea on May 18, 2010  9:52am

As a Democrat I am not surprised that Mr. Blumenthal misrepresented the facts of his service in the military. I have had many communications with Mr. Blumenthal over the years and found him to be a lot of talk but really very little action.  Examples of his talk are;
addressing the impact of violent video games- as a parent who lost a child to violence which continues to be believed related to the games, I contacted Mr. Blumenthal who did nothing.
whistle blower retaliation- Since Andrew Matthews (the state police officer) filed his complaint with the Office of Public Hearings- the whistle blower protections have actually gotten weaker in this state.  When Connecticut Taxpayers want to know where their money is spent- this is much harder to do when whistle blowers face retaliation which can result in an economic death penalty for the person willing to speak out.
Mr. Blumenthal has a long history of speaking up for people and for things- but when it comes to standing up and being counted, he hides.
As a Democrat I suggest he allow Ned Lamont to run for US Senate (this is a far better place for Mr. Lamont than governor and Mr. Blumenthal really is loosing more and more creditability and this can only get worse).

posted by: robn on May 18, 2010  9:58am

hmmm?

Don’t have an opinion about the NAM thing, but Blumie “served in the NIXON White House???!!!!???”
I DID NOT KNOW THAT.

posted by: William Hosley on May 18, 2010  10:03am

Rob Simmons isn’t a perfect candidate either, but he is the best the GOP has and even after almost 20 years in the CT General Assembly and US Congress has a compelling and inspiring life story that pre-dates his second career in politics. Unlike Blumenthal, he is not a career politician and hasn’t been cutting ribbons and sucking up to interest groups (while administering his office with unequivocal partiality) for 40 years; nor is he able to self-finance; nor is he - come to think of it - from Greenwich. In other words Simmons is a candidate that looks familiar because he is, more than most, one of us. In 2001, when I was director of CT Landmarks, which operates the Nathan Hale homestead (Simmons digs Nathan Hale), Rob accepted an invitation to speak on “The Role of Espionage in National Defense” (consider the timing). It was riveting. He was professorial, articulate, entertaining and convincing.

posted by: robn on May 18, 2010  10:08am

Any chance that Cam Staples saw this coming and is queuing up?

posted by: robn on May 18, 2010  10:10am

ANDREA,

There would be a sweet sort of justice in sending Ned Lamont to sit next to Sen Lieberman…

....but the musical chairs this season is beginning to make me dizzy..

posted by: William Kurtz on May 18, 2010  10:39am

Pat,

I agree that not wanting to go to Vietnam is nothing to condemn someone for, but it’s disturbing when public figures take aggressive steps to avoid the draft but seek to wrap themselves in whatever admiration is gained from the electorate by falsely claiming a record of military service.  Avoiding the draft seems like a principled stand against a pointless war and more like self-interest in this context.

posted by: pat on May 18, 2010  11:04am

William Kurtz and I are surely a minority when it comes to respecting the choice of our peers to avoid military service during the Vietnam era. Wasn’t Bill Clinton taken to task for his deferment?
      The anti-war activists are always labeled as unpatriotic, peaceniks and even accused of aiding and abetting the enemy (treason).
      The attack on 9/11 on US soil reversed years of appropriate concerns over bloated military budgets and militarism as a response to political discontents.
        Had our society respected the questioning of the peace movement and other skeptics, had it learned the lessons of Vietnam - instead of denying them! - Iraq and Afghanistan would never have occurred. After all, it took the image of mushroom cloud and weapons of mass destruction (non-existent)  to stampede the American public into supporting wars fought by the overwhelming lower classes. No deferments needed. No draft = no protests from the young men and women who fight the wars.
        The Bush/Cheney years muted the voices of patriotic questioners who challenged the reasons given for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The so-called Patriot Act diluted civil liberties and made militarism equate to patriotism.
        It takes a lot of guts to stand up to the leadership of your country, say you don’t buy its reasons for killing strangers, then try to do something about it.
        If dissent and non-violence were truly respected, Blumenthal would have said he chose life and service over senseless killing and dying.
        That was never an option.

posted by: smintheus on May 18, 2010  11:10am

Blumenthal’s self-aggrandizement is pathetic, but Simmons is far, far creepier. From the earlier NHI report, it’s clear Simmons admits to having committed war crimes and engaged in prohibited abuse of prisoners while serving in Vietnam (threatening to withold medical care from wounded captives unless they told Simmons whatever he wanted them to say). And not only does Simmons decline to condemn the torture authorized by the Bush administration, he also adopts the Nixonian view that the president is the law (anything the president wants to do to abuse prisoners is legal as long as he can get one of his appointees in the DOJ to approve it, according to Simmons). CT already has one creepy, authoritarian Senator in DC; does it really want another?

posted by: mr mike on May 18, 2010  11:24am

what mr blumenthal is waiting to go in front of a camera until 2pm. must be trying to figure out a way to file another lawsuit.

posted by: William Kurtz on May 18, 2010  11:47am

Clinton was taken to task, but at least it was because he appeared to have taken steps to avoid military service—all entirely respectable ones and well-within the laws if I remember correctly—and not because he tried to capitalize on a non-existent military record. 

Dissent and non-violence won’t be respected in the larger public sphere until politicians have the courage to stand up for it.

posted by: robn on May 18, 2010  12:07pm

Not a story. If its a slip of the tongue and you substitute “during” for “in” in Blumie’s quote….not a story.

posted by: JB on May 18, 2010  12:11pm

Depressing news.  I don’t know how this works, but if he steps aside, can another candidate run on the Democratic ticket?

I wonder if there’s a timing issue, since the primary is coming up soon.

posted by: cba on May 18, 2010  12:53pm

This is appalling that someone would allege service in Viet Nam when he never left the continental United States.  However it does re-establish the age old premise that you have to carefully peruse the contents before buying the product.  If he lied about this simple fact, what else lurks in his history?

posted by: TheVin on May 18, 2010  1:07pm

“Dick Blumenthal voluntarily joined the Marine Corps Reserves in 1970 and served for six months in Parris Island, SC and six years in the reserves.  He received no special treatment from anyone”

5 DEFERMENTS BETWEEN 1965-1970!!!!!!

posted by: Alan H Donn on May 18, 2010  1:13pm

Watched video clip on torture - OK to harp on “llawfulness as determined by judicial review but felt that you should have taken a stronger stand as per John McCain (fellow USNA grad and Vietnam POW who walked the walk of torture.) We are trying to claim the moral high ground in the court of world public opinion while fighting the “War on Terror”. To practice “enhanced interinterrogationniques” (torture) by our own forces or by surrogate governments is to head down a slippery slope of moral blackness that makes a mockery of our claim to correct treatment of prisoners and also puts any of our people who become prisoners at grave risk; removing all constraints on our enemies regarding the treatment of captives.l

posted by: William Kurtz on May 18, 2010  2:00pm

Sorry Robn, but I’m calling BS.  If it was a slip of the tongue, and if you substitute, “this is going to take at least 7 more years” for “Mission Accomplished” on that banner, that wasn’t a story either.  Not exactly the same thing, but it’s really high time people on all sides of the political spectrum started holding our elected officials to a higher standard of truth, especially when it comes to fundamental facts.

If it was just that one quotation, maybe he misspoke.  But the Times article makes it pretty clear that there’s been a longstanding pattern of Blumenthal giving misleading statements and failing to correct obvious distortions in his biography.  And I’m sorry; that’s not okay.  To my mind it’s the same thing as all of those fervently anti-gay “leaders” being caught with their pants down in chatrooms , hotel rooms, airport bathrooms, and Europe.  Why does this kind of thing always seem to so one-sided, even accounting for my observer bias?  A guy who knows a war is wrong and doesn’t want to go tries to wrap himself in the uniform 30 years later.  The guys who vote to keep people from enjoying access to basic human traditions like marriage gets caught cruising for boy toys on the internet or under the stall door.  The right always gets the bone and the left always gets the shaft, because the people who don’t care which consenting adults choose to have sex and who think nations should starting trying to solve more problems without shooting brown people in countries that the drooling hordes of birthers and truthers can’t find on a map are expected to see past the “mistakes” and grasp the nuance. 

It doesn’t matter to me at all whether Blumenthal served in Vietnam.  I didn’t care that Clinton took every deferment he could get. I don’t care that Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, George Bush, and right-wing warmongers galore worked their way out either.  I am bothered by the hypocrisy—Blumenthal wants to have it all; he wants to capitalize on the hoary old myth that crowds were lining up to spit on return Vietnam veterans while enjoying that nice political glow that being a Vietnam veteran seems to confer these days.  And that’s a disservice to everyone involved. 

One flaw doesn’t undo a person completely and I’m not even saying right now I wouldn’t vote for him.  Like I said, it might not matter, but let’s not pretend it isn’t something that it is.

posted by: Gretchen Pritchard on May 18, 2010  2:06pm

This reminds me of Hillary Clinton’s “misstatements” about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia.  As one of the participants in the WNPR “Where We Live” program said this morning, this is a weird syndrome that overcomes some people when running for office and speaking to crowds.  They start to say really crazy, off-the-wall things in an effort to impress their audiences, identify with them, and ingratiate themselves with them.

The fact that it can happen to otherwise sane and sensible candidates like Clinton and Blumenthal should cause thoughtful voters to have a sense of perspective about it.  But I’m not counting on that to happen in today’s electoral climate. ...

posted by: pat on May 18, 2010  2:26pm

RE: alleged spitting on returning vets, hasn’t this Urban Legend been discredited and retired yet?
      I recall reading a piece (sorry, forgot the source. Could have been NY Times) where investigators tried to track down source of that story and similar ones and found NOTHING to substantiate that any such event ever took place.
      Vietnam was not WW II and the experiences of returning vets were not the same.
      My father served on a destroyer in the South Pacific and said that vets were not given any time to adjust and prepare to return home at war’s end. Their medical, dental and nutritional needs were critical in many cases and there were dumped - his words - to cope on their own.
      Kurtz is right to expect accountability.
      If we all act as though it’s ok to make excuses and ignore our leaders’ lies, then we’re part of the problem and not part of the solution.

posted by: Kim on May 18, 2010  3:04pm

Well, he certainly cleared THAT up.

posted by: frank on May 18, 2010  3:47pm

Does the CIA deserve a seat in the U.S. Senate?

Simmons former CIA agent would be exactly that.

posted by: I just love a Greek Salad on May 18, 2010  4:22pm

Selam, yes so very sad.
And then there is George Bush,  How very,very sad.  We live in a sad, pathetic country and becoming more so every day.  And this is one more nail in the coffin of my interest in politics - and it all started with Johnny D in New Haven!

posted by: Cracker on May 18, 2010  7:57pm

Linda McMahon has now proven that Richard Blimenthal is a POLITICIAN, which she is on the record, to replace, IN HER TV ADS!  Politicians are thought to LIE A LOT, and she caught Blumenthal as LYING, BY EXAMPLE.

posted by: William Landers on May 19, 2010  9:57am

http://ameriborn.com/?p=3046

At the Connecticut Army National Guard deployment on December 11th, 2009 at the Convention Center, William Landers of Ameriborn News talks with Attorney General Richard Blumenthal about his service with the Marine Corps Reserve during 1970 through 1976.

posted by: eastrivertype on May 21, 2010  5:07pm

No veteran has any “glee” over Blumenthal’s statements, misstatements or lies depending on your perspective.
Rob Simmons began by respecting Blumenthal’s service.  Then he asked questions.  Where is the qlee in that?
One veteran I know told me: “Like Dick Blumenthal, I served in the Marine Corps Reserve.  Unlike Dick Blumenthal, I didn’t forget where I served and I never will.  Dick Blumenthal served honorably.  When he makes repeated misstatements about that service, he dishonors his service.”
Blumenthal’s willingness to say anything to further his career is shameful, despite honorable service.