What else Blumenthal said (UNCLASSIFIED)

[David A. Daniel]

>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

Well now, that is the interesting thing. I have no ax to grind with
Blumenthal either. I know nothing about him or his politics. I do know that
he is a Democrat and, in any election, if the choice is between a Democrat
and a Republican, the Democrat would have to have been convicted of raping
his grandmother before I would ever consider voting for the Republican. The
Blumenthal defenders here seem to be taking this really personally,
clutching at straws to defend the undefendable, maybe because they are
absolutely traumatized by the idea that the Republican Medusa might win the
seat. Well, I am traumatized too. And I am very, very pissed off that our
Democratic candidate was so stupid as to lie about his military service, a
thing that is so easily checked. And, yes, the swim meet was intramural (the
clutched-at straw). It is still up in the air whether Blumenthal was on the
swim team, but evidence is pointing towards only the intramural variety. And
who cares anyway, except that it seems he may have a history of padding his
resume and, thus, is putting the good guys at risk of losing yet another
Senate seat.
DAD


________________________________________
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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