What else Blumenthal said (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE



> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of David A. Daniel
> Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 5:34 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: What else Blumenthal said (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> --------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
> Subject:      Re: What else Blumenthal said (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
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> --------
>
> >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
>

As far as Blumenthal being on an intramural swim team as opposed to a
varsity one, my bad.  I found the article, it fit my preconceived notion
that David was wrong and that Blumenthal was in fact on the swim team,
and I posted/linked to it without reading it fully.  I wasn't "clutching
at a straw", I was wrong.  I did just as badly as some of the media who
are being discussed here, and I was wrong.  My apologies. (But I don't
discount the possibility that his role as anchor on the IM team was
somehow conflated into a leadership role of the varsity team -- can't
prove it, though).

But I don't consider myself a "defender of Blumenthal" so much as a
"defender of someone who is getting a raw deal from the media".  And I
think he is.  I tend to vote much to the right of a standard-issue
Connecticut Democrat, and probably wouldn't vote for him if he were
running in my state (but not because he has made demonstrably false
statements about his Vietnam era service).  And any state which has sent
Chris Dodd to the senate for nearly 30 years deserves whatever it gets
(I can't decide about Lieberman).

I should probably refrain from further posts on this thread.
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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