Blumenthal Needs To Admit He Lied About Being In Vietnam If He Wants To Remain Credible

As much as I personally like Ct Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and believe he has done much to protect consumers and veterans, his ability to continue to effectively serve as the state’s lawyer is in jeopardy.

His claim that it was only a slip of the tongue when he said he was in Vietnam during the war is so ludicrous that only his most ardent supporters and those who don’t know U.S. history will swallow it.

I have watched the FULL tape (which is on this site) of the 2008 speech in which he made that claim about his service in the Marines and the Marine Reserve.

He first properly said that he served during the Vietnam War. Two minutes later in the same speech he crossed the line and outright lied saying “I served in Vietnam.”

It was not the first or the only time he made such a claim to an audience about his service record, the New York Times reported Monday.

Blumenthal’s political friend former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays – who frequently appeared with Blumenthal at gatherings – told the New York Times he was convinced that Blumenthal actually served in Vietnam by listening to his speeches. As the years went by, Shays said, Blumenthal kept embellishing his military service. The following two graphs are from the Times interview:

“Eventually, Mr. Shays said, he began hearing Mr. Blumenthal refer to having served in Vietnam. Mr. Shays said he assumed, wrongly, that Mr. Blumenthal had perhaps been a military lawyer there. That alone, he said, was enough for him to have had the impulse to advise Blumenthal to be careful, that people could interpret his remarks as a claim to have seen action there.

“I felt inclined to go to him and say, ‘Dick, in your service in Vietnam, you weren’t on the firing line, you don’t want to overstate that,’ ” Mr. Shays said. “I just felt like he was raising the stakes in a way that was inconsistent with what he’d said in the past. I was actually going to go up and speak to him. And I wish I had.”

As someone who volunteered to join the U.S. Army in 1969 during the Vietnam War. and proudly served three years – two in Germany – I find his false claims insulting to every one of the 500,000 men and women who either voluntarily or involuntarily fought in that terrible war. And for someone who made great efforts to avoid going to Vietnam, it is even more astounding to later make those claims.

For some media to buy into his spin that it could have been a simple error because he first did correctly state that he was in the military during the war, it shows plain ignorance. Anyone of draft age in the late 1960s and early 1970s will never forget the difference. It’s the difference between saying “I was in an accident” or “I witnessed an accident.” The word accident is in both phrases, but there is a huge difference.

Perhaps a more understandable analogy for those in the younger generation, is saying in one speech that you are a resident of Connecticut and that you moved from Stamford. Accurately saying you are a resident of Connecticut does not negate a lie if you in fact never lived in Stamford.

Unfortunately for the attorney general, this is not a mistake that one can simply paper over by going to a veterans’ organization and claiming to have simply misspoken. Who can ever take seriously any claim he might make of being outraged when some company official is caught lying?

The credibility of the attorney general is on the line here. He would never tolerate such a misstatement from a target of an investigation and the voters of Connecticut should not tolerate Blumenthal’s flimsy excuse.

Blumenthal’s only hope of regaining his credibility is to tell the voters the truth and explain why he lied. He has a huge bank account of good will and good deeds to fall back on.

I am sure that if he comes clean, the veterans who actually served in Vietnam will be the first to forgive him. We all make mistakes. The crucial difference is whether we own up to them.