What else Blumenthal said (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Shapiro, Fred]

I have no big ax to grind with Blumenthal.  I am prepared to accept that the Times may be exaggerating his misstatements.  I will probably vote for him if he's on the ballot.  But his defenders on this list seem to be going somewhat overboard.  For example, the article that Bill refers to below is clearly about an intramural team, not the Harvard swim team.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Mullins, Bill AMRDEC [Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL]
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 4:39 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: What else Blumenthal said (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE



> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Dan Goodman
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 9:16 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: What else Blumenthal said
>
>
> He's also reported to have said twice that he was captain of the
> Harvard
> swim team.  Which, according to reports, he was never a member of --
> let
> alone captain.
>
>

Another easy-to-find proof he was on the swim team:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1966/3/10/reverett-drowns-kirkland-tak
es-house-swim/

Harvard Crimson, 3/10/1966

"In the medley relay, John Wurster, Grant Hammond, Tony Obst, and Tom
Pringle swam a 1:53.5, beating Kirkland by nearly a body-length. Walter
Keats, Tom Pringle, Jeff Dundon and anchor Richard Blumenthal did a
1:36.7--average splits of 24 plus--to win by over half the pool."

And in fact it shows that he was the anchor of the relay team, which
could have been conflated into "captain".


Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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