{"id":5363,"date":"2010-05-18T14:59:42","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T18:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=5363"},"modified":"2010-05-18T14:59:42","modified_gmt":"2010-05-18T18:59:42","slug":"%e2%80%9c%e2%80%a6-since-the-days-that-i-served-in-vietnam%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/5363\/%e2%80%9c%e2%80%a6-since-the-days-that-i-served-in-vietnam%e2%80%9d\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201c\u2026.since the days that I served in Vietnam\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Those words, spoken by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the runaway Democratic candidate for the Senate seat being vacated by Chris Dodd, invoke a powerful sense of respect for one who has put his life on the line in service of our country, if only they were true.\u00a0 The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/18\/nyregion\/18blumenthal.html?bl\">NY Times<\/a> report, published today, traces a long history of uncorrected misleading statements and outright falsehoods about Blumenthal\u2019s military service record.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/05\/18\/AR2010051802208.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&amp;sub=AR\">statement<\/a> from his campaign asserts:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;(Blumenthal) voluntarily joined the Marine Corps Reserves in 1970 and served for six months in Parris Island, S.C., and six years in the reserves.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Even that service is to be commended, although the Times reports that Blumenthal received up to five deferments prior to his enlistment.\u00a0 More important, the statement is utterly inconsistent with recorded evidence in speeches made by the candidate himself.\u00a0 In 2008, Blumenthal spoke to a veterans\u2019 group in Norfolk saying (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=D3KgsgRfjhQ\">video<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWe have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam\u2026And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it \u2014 Afghanistan or Iraq \u2014 we owe our military men and women unconditional support.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The same year, at another event in Bridgeport:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWhen we returned, we saw nothing like this\u2026Let us do better by this generation of men and women.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nothing Blumenthal says at his press conference today can explain away statements like those.\u00a0 The words he used clearly convey, and were intended to convey, that he was physically in Vietnam, which is simply untrue.<\/p>\n<p>What was once a very comfortable campaign for Blumenthal to assume the liberal throne in Connecticut now is very much back in play, if he does not do the honorable thing and withdraw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those words, spoken by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the runaway Democratic candidate for the Senate seat being vacated by Chris Dodd, invoke a powerful sense of respect for one who has put his life on the line in service of our country, if only they were true.\u00a0 The NY Times report, published today, traces [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[700,1289,1290,1235,1291],"class_list":["post-5363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2010-elections","tag-blumenthal","tag-connecticut","tag-dodd","tag-us-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5363"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5367,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363\/revisions\/5367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}