Semper Cry, Baby, And Other Tales


I really want to believe that the lipstick on Richard Blumenthal's collar is there as a result of the dry cleaner's carelessness, I really do. He has for so long proclaimed his love for the people of the state of Connecticut that I had come to hope he was as good as his sound bytes. But he looks like such a liar claiming to have served in Vietnam. Are all politicians dogs?

Blumenthal is a liar. Susan Bysiewicz is thrown out of the race for Attorney General, but keeps on swinging. A former spy for the Central Intelligence Agency stands on the sidelines calling everyone liars. Suddenly the campaign for U.S. Senate of a wresting promoter seems almost credible. I'm even getting calls suggesting that I run for something.

I know how Dorothy felt when she realized she was no longer in Kansas.

Blumenthal's press conference in the wake of The New York Time's front page story on his false claims to have served in Vietnam and to have been captain of Harvard's swim team was as depressing a read as I can remember. The man's resume glitters, in a predictable sort of way. Harvard. Yale law. Yale Law Journal. The White House. Cambridge University. Wealth. Why the almost compulsive need to lie?

Of course, he claims it was no lie at all. He merely misspoke, he says. And just maybe Bill Clinton did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky. What is "is" anyway?

Blumenthal's defiant claim that he will not permit anyone to impugn his record of service sounded like the good, old-fashioned, self-righteous Dick we've all come to know and wince over on the television screen. Blumenthal's moral outrage is sound and fury signifying an empty suit. We don't have to impugn his service record. After five deferments during the Vietnam War, his role as a Marine reservist passing out Toys for Tots while lesser mortals died speaks for itself.

Semper Cry, baby.

But as bad as he looked, he didn't really look any worse than Bysiewicz. After she was tossed out of the attorney general's race by the state Supreme Court because she could not satisfy the statutory requirement of ten year's experience practicing law, she is rumored to have set her sites on yet another statewide office, comptroller. She overestimates the esteem in which she is held by voters.

First, she was considering a run for governor. Then she decided to become attorney general. Now she wants to remain Secretary of the State. She's behaving as though she were to the manor born, and has only to decide which castle she should inhabit.

Bysiewicz has always been an optimist. Why, she observes, no less a lawyer than Elena Kagan, Supreme Court nominee, would be ineligible to serve as attorney general in Connecticut. After all, Kagan is about as familiar with a courtroom as Blumenthal is with a fox hole. We've a soft spot for ingenue's in Connecticut. Why Robert Chatigny was appointed to the federal bench without ever having tried a case to a verdict, and now he's slated for a promotion to the Second Circuit. I believe in miracles.

And what of Rob Simmons, candidate 007? He spent the week calling everyone a liar. I suppose he knows a little bit about truth. He spent a decade as a spy employed by the CIA. At least this is one candidate who is candid about having made a living telling lies. But that doesn't make him a national hero. It just makes him a man who knows that the truth can be bent to serve larger purposes.

At least Republican Senate hopeful Linda McMahon is honest about being a show woman. The queen of the World Wrestling Federation knows we are suckers. Nero's twin sister is alive and well and in Connecticut.

The only breath of fresh air in this swamp is the late entry of Ross Garber into the race for attorney general. But I almost afraid to pin any hopes on him. I'm afraid he might be a fox hole buddy of Dick's. Please, Ross. Don't be another hologram.

If this is the state of the politics in Connecticut, I want to move to Roswell, New Mexico. Area 54 and aliens seem mighty familiar just now.

Reprinted courtesy of the Connecticut Law Tribune.

Comments: (4)

  • A Bermuda Triangle of the Mind, that is for sure. ...
    A Bermuda Triangle of the Mind, that is for sure. Things do not look too good in the nutty state. Maybe it's in the water? Certainly not the first time The New York Times has exposed goings-on in CT which no local press dared expose. Even Massachusetts residents are blushing at the outrageous behavior of their cousins to the South under the reign of Ma-Relland and Mr. Rock-and-Rowl Himself.
    Things may change slowly in the 'land of steady habits', but the animals are getting restless in other parts of the country. Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Arkansas this week alone. Tea Partyers may have a few more celebrations to go before it's all over but the crying for the well-healed and well-entrenched professional liars, thieves, cheaters and dissemblers.
    Posted on May 20, 2010 at 12:48 am by William Doriss
  • I guess I have little in common with the thinking ...
    I guess I have little in common with the thinking of what's called "the average voter." I assume polls have demonstrated that voters respect candidates who have served in the armed forces especially during combat. Yet, it is beyond dispute by now that Vietnam was a useless, corrupt enterprise built on lies starting with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
    This doesn't mean the soldiers who fought there are themselves corrupt. Many were duped but in no way did that war advance the interests of the United States. Many profited from it to the detriment of the US economy since the war caused runaway inflation.
    I must ask why candidates would herald their service in Vietnam rather than suppress it given the historical record.
    I've never figured out how one can be a hero in an unholy struggle. Brave, true, but a hero, no given the lack of any higher purpose for the war itself.
    Posted on May 20, 2010 at 5:52 am by Anonymous
  • Runaway inflation, a v. bad market sell-off which ...
    Runaway inflation, a v. bad market sell-off which ended in the Spring of '75, a terrible real estate market, culminating in the worst recession since WWII--a recession which has not been duplicated since, except for the one we're in now. The times are quite comparable, sans the tremendous anti-war movement of the late 60s and 70s.
    We recovered from that depressing decade with the election of Ronald Reagan, as imperfect a president as he was. It remains to be seen how this one plays out. Right now, I'd say, and many millions of us believe, the Obama prescription for health care and Obamanomics will is not working and will not work.
    We live in precarious times, as the markets are reminding us today. Dow Jones Chow Mein down 350 points. Oil under $70 and wholesale gasoline under two books. I like to see oil and gas go down, but who knows? We must find 'alternate' sources of energy.
    Posted on May 20, 2010 at 6:49 am by William Doriss
  • Maybe she doesn't overestimate her esteem with vot...
    Maybe she doesn't overestimate her esteem with voters, but estimates just right her ability to make a living doing anything else.
    It is amazing to me the way the state office holders here in CA bounce around. What does being lieutenant governor have to do with being treasurer have to do with being attorney general?
    Posted on May 20, 2010 at 6:24 pm by Lee Stonum

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