George Will opines on Connecticut’s senatorial race — and his opinion of Dick Blumenthal is rather low:
Her Democratic opponent, Richard Blumenthal, who served six years in the Legislature, has been Connecticut’s attorney general for 20 years, so he knows how to parse sentences. Yet his penchant for (to be polite) tactical imprecision goes beyond his various falsehoods – he says he “misspoke” every time – about serving in Vietnam.
He says he served on “active duty” in the Marine Reserve. That is true only if training is counted. He says he joined in 1970 even though the draft lottery gave him a high number that made him unlikely to be conscripted. His number, however, was 152, and men with numbers up to 195 were vulnerable to induction. In 2002, he said he enlisted because he had a “pretty low draft number.”
On MSNBC he intimated that he would not take “special interest” or PAC money, promising fundraising “from ordinary citizens.” But he flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, for a PAC fundraising event for him and 11 other Democratic Senate candidates. Blumenthal said it was not for Harry Reid. Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie reports that the invitation to the event and documents filed with the Federal Election Commission say Reid was among the beneficiaries. Blumenthal says it was an opportunity to discuss problems “affecting ordinary people.” Rennie says the top ticket price was $43,200.