Did we just hear Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal try to blame local journalists for his ‘misspoken’ words about his Vietnam war record? When Blumenthal was asked at Tuesday’s press conference why he didn’t correct published accounts of his Vietnam service, he said:
There were a few articles, not many. I am responsible for my own statements….I can’t be responsible for all the articles, I may not even have seen them. ….sometimes journalists do make mistakes.
Cr: Chion Wolf
Really? Sure, journalists get quotes and background wrong from time to time but civil servants, who are in the public eye like Blumenthal, often call right away to demand a correction. In fact, that’s just what our A.G.’s press staff usually did with me – even when I wrote the quotes exactlyas he said them during phone interviews. Case in point:
When Blumenthal decided he’d be piggy-backing an investigation into a Greenwich hedge fund, Plainfield Asset Management, he personally called me to offer a statement. I’d already published the story highlighting that it was the Manhattan D.A. who’d actually done the leg work to pursue a case of lending fraud against the hedgies. But now Blumenthal wanted in on the story we were running on the top of the Greenwich Time homepage. Ironically, after I updated the story with the A.G. saying he’d join the investigation, I got a scathing phone call within 15 minutes from his head of press saying Blumenthal actually had to review the facts of the Manhattan D.A.’s case before he’d join – and while he may have said that — they requested his quote changed. So we reluctantly did it. It’s now confirmed that Blumenthal is actively investigating Max Holmes’ troubled hedge fund, which his team had no problem leaking to the press.
You see, from my reporter’s seat this was common practice for Team Blumenthal. He’s got a pretty smart group of public relations boys and girls that have their boss’s name on high-speed Google alert so they can review anything and everything that rolls into print. With Dick, it seems there was always an acute awareness of massaging the message – even more so after he announced his run for the U.S. Senate.
Neil Vigdor reports yesterday at Greenwich Time that they’ve found at least five cases of Hearst print stories in which Blumenthal is touting his hard time serving in Vietnam – yet there’s no mention of anyone on his staff calling to correct those stories. Why – because the A.G.’s group simply didn’t want to.
“I wore the uniform in Vietnam and many came back to all kinds of disrespect. Whatever we think of war, we owe the men and women of the armed forces our unconditional support.”
The occasion was the Stamford Veterans Day parade Nov. 9, 2008.
The speaker was Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, as quoted by The Advocate.
A trove of potential bulletin board material was unearthed Tuesday by Hearst Connecticut Newspapers from its archives quoting the once seemingly unflappable U.S. Senate candidate on his military record, one that he has been accused of embellishing.
Sure, Blumenthal can say he’s not responsible for what the journalists write, but please don’t insult us by saying he or his team isn’t actively aware of what goes into those sentences.
Press reports quote U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., a Blumenthal ally, saying politicians have to be extremely careful with their words.
I say if the words come out wrong you have a duty to try to correct them, which was something we just didn’t see this seasoned politician do.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.