Skip to main content

Perez Falls Down: Blumenthal Falls Up

That racket on the stairs was the body of now former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez tumbling down. There seems to be little doubt that his demise as mayor was a form of suicide rather than manslaughter.

Perez’s appointed end had been visible to most political watchers soon after stories began to surface in the press concerning favors done by contractor Carlos Costa for Perez at a time when the memory of similar favors conferred upon former Governor John Rowland were still fresh in the mind of everyone but partisan Democratic politicians who had supported the Hartford mayor over the years.

Democratic politicians were a little slow on the uptake. After Perez’s verdict was read out by the jury – the Mayor is facing a possible 50 year sentence – one columnist noted that Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was somewhat laggard in this regard: “I think it's fair to ask Richard Blumenthal, who has announced his intention to use the fairly new pension and benefits law against Perez, why he saw fit to endorse Perez in 2007 when the basic facts of the renovations case against Perez were a matter of record? These facts haven't changed much at all from then until yesterday, when they were good enough to make six people return guilty verdicts. Why weren't they good enough to make Blumenthal withhold his endorsement?”

Of course, Blumenthal has not been out and about in the public arena since his numerous lies concerning his military service in Vietnam surfaced weeks ago, and so he is unlikely to face a firing squad of journalists any time soon.

And indeed, why should Blumenthal submit to the indignity of media questioning: He is 20 points ahead in the polls? The usual dog-eared political playbook recommends a low profile for prospective U.S. senators who are that far ahead of their competitors six months before an election. And it has been agreed by a majority of Connecticut reporters and commentators that the attorney general has over a period of more than 20 years accumulated enough wish-you-well points to survive even stolen valor charges, a fatal banana peel for politicians less happily situated than Blumenthal.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Casey Chadwick’s Uneasy Life after Death

Casey and her mother Wendy "I just started grief counseling. I'm always sad. I'm sad and in pain and I miss her." Wendy Hartling   Hartling is the mother of Casey Chadwick, murdered in 2015 by Jean Jacques , an illegal Haitian immigrant. Jacques was convicted of the murder of Chadwick in a New London Superior Court jury trial and sentenced by Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed to a 60 year term in prison. Since Jacques is 44 years of age, the sentence was, in effect, a life sentence. Connecticut Commentary coverage of the Chadwick murder may be found here , and here   and here . Jacques could not have been sentenced to death because Connecticut’s Democrat dominated General Assembly, under pressure from the state Supreme Court, had abolished Connecticut’s death penalty law in 2012 . The slaughter of Chadwick was particularly brutal. Her body had been found by a friend who, opening a door to a closet, discovered Chadwick stuffed in a dark corner drenched in blo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Understanding North Korea Through Dramaturgy

The U.S. military is sending the Vinson Strike Group, including the carrier and two guided-missile destroyers, to operate in the Western Pacific Ocean in response to Pyongyang’s recent missile tests. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, asked about the strike force, issued a terse statement: “The United States has spoken enough about North Korea. We have no further comment.” Is this a post-Syrian bombing mission? Will the US take out North Korea’s missile launching sites, possibly with the unspoken concurrence of China? Never let a bombing go to waste. There are some in the United States who think any such incident should be used to rid North Korea of that runty little totalitarian cock-of-the-walk who keeps his countrymen starved, in fear and at his knees. Since we only have one chance, they say, go for the clean sweep -- no more Kims. Connecticut Commentary is reprinting an earlier piece about the Kims here. Best read with a glass of port.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."
17 comments
Read more