For the past few days I’ve been troubled by reports I read last week in The New York Times and our newspaper chain quoting former Republican U.S. Congressman Christopher Shays on how Richard Blumenthal has described his military service.
The Times earlier in the week reported that Blumenthal, who is the Democrat’s U.S. Senate nominee, has mislead the public to believe he served in Vietnam rather than stateside in the Marine Corps Reserves.
Blumenthal, who as an attorney recognizes the power of words, said he misspoke and never intended to mislead people, something critics continue to find hard to believe.
Shays was the focus of a follow-up piece by The Times and his comments, characterized as coming from “a good friend” were used as further evidence that Blumenthal has inaccurately portrayed his Vietnam-era service. The newspaper wrote that the former Congressman, who lost his seat in 2008 and recently considered running for Governor, “had watched with worry as Mr. Blumenthal gradually embellished his military record over the years.”
“As prominent Democrats in the state rallied to Mr. Blumenthal’s side on Tuesday (following The Times’ initial report), saying they had never seen him describe himself as a Vietnam veteran or chalking such misstatements up to a momentary lapse, Mr. Shays’ comments appeared to bolster the idea that Mr. Blumenthal’s descriptions of his military record had been somewhat embroidered, bit by bit, with the passage of time.”
“More and more it kept creeping in,” Shays was quoted as telling The Times.
And our story quoted Shays as saying Blumenthal “evolved from being pretty clear about his service to being somewhat nebulous about it and really giving a false impression about his service.” Shays also told our reporter Blumenthal is a friend of “high integrity.”
What bugged me was nowhere in these articles was Shays specifically asked to judge Blumenthal, as other Republicans and some veterans and some political commentators had been doing. Did he agree that Blumenthal was purposefully trying to mislead voters for political benefit? Did Shays get the impression the guy was doing something nefarious? That was the question at the heart of last week’s national political furor caused by The Times’ first story – is Blumenthal duplicitous? – and no one asked Shays. We in the media were, apparently, just eager to have his quotes about this being a pattern for Blumenthal.
So I called Shays today to get an answer.
“Let me just say this to you. I think he’s a very good and decent guy and I think he slipped into this. I don’t think it was nefarious in any way,” Shays said. “I just think Dick is a very good and decent guy. I don’t think he wanted to give people the wrong impression. I don’t think he wanted to. When you’re with groups that you want to identify (with) you can slip into something that, if you really thought about it, you wish you hadn’t.”
Shays also said he specifically told The Times “I’ve never heard him say he’s been in Vietnam. I just heard him say things that made me think he had, and that was an impression others had.”
The Times’ article instead reported “Mr. Shays … began hearing Mr. Blumenthal refer to having served in Vietnam.”
Our newspapers found other examples of Blumenthal’s making incorrect statements about his time during the Vietnam era, and yet we also found evidence Blumenthal had been clear and accurate about his military record over the years.
Shays continued: “If you’re asking me do I think he would have wanted to give a false impression? No. I think he just didn’t think about it, and now he’s struggling with what he’s having to struggle with … As a friend I would tell him to stay in the race and just deal with it as best he can. I wouldn’t be suggesting in any way he should get out of this race. But it’s a legitimate issue that he has to deal with.”
I asked Shays if he felt the criticism being leveled at Blumenthal this past week has been unfair.
Shays noted the reality is anyone else in Blumenthal’s situation would be facing the same attacks.
“I’m not saying that’s unfair,” Shays said. “I’m saying I felt that particularly the television media and many people who don’t know him were, I think, unduly harsh.”
I have heard Mr. Blumenthal say on many occasions that he served in the Marine Corps during Vietnam. To the uninformed, that sounds very much like, I am a Vietnam veteran.
Let me get this straight: Chris Shays told the New York Times last week that he “began hearing Mr. Blumenthal refer to having served in Vietnam,” and that, (Blumenthal) “really gave a false impression about his service.” Now, however, he tells Brian Lockhart that, “I’ve never heard him say he’s been in Vietnam. I just heard him say things that made me think he had.” Yet Shays never specifies when and exactly what those “things” were that Blumenthal said to make him “think he had.” Nothing. No dates, no venues, no quotes. Nothing. And this from a man who, though a conservative Republican serving in Washington, D.C., calles Dick Blumenthal “a good friend.” That’s “Both Ways” Shays to a tee.
I am still waiting for one Connecticut reporter, any Connecticut reporter, to call Chris Shays and get him to come clean on his own deceptions regarding his own draft record. Unlike Mr. Blumenthal, whom, according to reports by NPR’s David Falkenflick and Hartford Courant’s Colin McEnroe, no reporter in this state can recall ever having heard claim to have served in Vietnam, many of us have heard Mr. Shays repeatedly for many years claim that he didn’t go into the military, but served in the Peace Corps. Though Mr. Shays has been careful to never use the word “instead”, he clearly has implied that his Peace Corps service kept him out of the draft until 1972 when he claimed conscientious objector status. The problem is that, as confirmed in writing to me by the Selective Service Administration, service in the Peace Corps was never considered grounds for a deferment or an exemption from military service. Why, then, has no Connecticut journalist ever demanded that Mr. Shays make public his own draft records? Why has no member of the Connecticut press corps ever demanded that Mr. Shays substantiate his claim that Peace Corps service kept him out of the draft? And why, during all the years of the Iraq War didn’t one single member of our state’s press corps ever write an article questioning the morality and ethics of claiming CO status to keep Mr. Shays out of the Vietnam War, while displaying no qualms whatsoever in enthusiastically supporting sending young men to the war in Iraq? And why, when Mr. Shays piles on to “his good friend” Dick Blumenthal over his draft record, doesn’t anyone question Mr. Shays’ own record, as well as his standing to question Mr. Blumenthal’s record?
There are a lot of questions out there that our conservative press corps just refuses to ask- and answer.
Fuzzy, that is interesting – I’ve seen the crazy writing in those steno pads, I wouldn’t be comfortable that “Vietnam-era” wouldn’t be reproduced as “Vietnam.” However, now most reporters use those little silver audio recorders.
I think the problem is that Blumenthal is a very old man. I will probably vote for him because he generally favors the same policies that I do, but I would prefer to have him serving us at the height of his intellectual powers.
Peter did what I did — cursed the man’s name, threw salt over his shoulder, and turned around three times. We retired him so that we could stop seeing his name and hearing his voice all the time.
Brian,
It seems like a lot of the misstatements that have been dug up aren’t gleaned from transcripts or watching/listening to recordings of the actual events, but are instead quotes reported by journalists. In other words, many of the quotes are what essentially what lawyers would call hearsay; the quotes aren’t necessarily what Mr. Blumenthal actually said, just what a journalist (who, at the time he had no reason to believe would be subject to such rigorous scrutiny regarding the placement of a preposition within a sentence) thought he heard Mr. Blumenthal say. Is it at all possible that some of these quotes are at least a little inaccurate? How comfortable are you that you’re 100% or even 99% accurate when quoting sources? It strikes me that in several instances, such as the swim team angle, it is clear that Blumenthal did not set out to deceive, but was instead the victim [or beneficiary, however you wish to view it] of shoddy reporting.
I think people are actually under the misimpression (he he) that journalists are always accurate when quoting sources. But anyone who has actually been quoted frequently is probably aware that this is rarely, if ever, the case.
Thanks Peter, but care to elaborate?
Was Shays a joke when his comments were being used last week as further proof that Blumenthal is a liar, or is he just a joke because he isn’t condemning the guy as a duplicitous, two-faced politician who hoped no one would catch him puffing up his military resume?
Shays is a JOKE