Blumenthal And The Clinton-Trump Mashup

Donald Trump, the Attila the Hun of GOP politics, is not everyone’s cup of tea, and much has been said about him in what he might call, disdainfully, the Main Stream Media. Mr. Trump’s notion that libel laws should be “loosened up” likely did not go down well with the editorial board of the New York Times.

Here in Connecticut, Democrats chomping at the bit are anxious to drape The Donald around the necks of newly nominated Republican hopefuls. Doubtless they will be assisted in this endeavor by the state’s left of center media. The prospect of Mr. Trump as a national Republican Party bellwether in the upcoming elections is, as Queen Elizabeth was reported to have said after Windsor Castle had been ravaged by fire, “awkward.”

“It's a tough time to be a Republican,” Colin McEnroe noted in a column. Mr. McEnroe suggested that Republicans who find the Trump Presidential campaign awkward might escape their discomfort by starting a third party: “Believe it or not, I have Republican friends here in Connecticut, and I do empathize with the pain it would cause them to leave their party, even temporarily, to fight against Trump. They weren't brought up to do something like that, but they might have to do it anyway.” Desperate times call for desperate measures, but this one would fairly assure the election to the Presidency of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Concerning the Clinton’s several Achilles' heels, anti-Trump journalists here in Connecticut have preserved a telling silence. There are no signs among Connecticut journalists of attempts to drape either of the Clintons around the neck of, say, U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, an energetic supporter of both Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Blumenthal and the Clintons were Yalies together in the late 1960’s, when Mr. Clinton, after having received a few draft deferments while at Oxford in England, began to fear he might lose them. Frantically, Mr. Clinton tried without success to join the National Guard or Air Force. He then made arrangements to join the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, but soon had second thoughts. Writing to Colonel Eugene Holmes, the army officer involved with Mr. Clinton’s ROTC application, the future President said a) he planned to oppose the war, and b) as an opponent of the war, he could not volunteer to serve in uniform. Instead, Mr. Clinton advised, he would subject himself to the draft “to maintain my political viability within the system."

As luck would have it – throughout their twin political careers, fortune often has smiled upon the Clintons -- Mr. Clinton drew a high draft number and was spared service in the Vietnam War. The ROTC officer who handled Mr. Clinton’s application would later issue a notarized statement that he had been deceived by Mr. Clinton, according to Roger Morris, author of Partners in Power: The Clinton’s and Their America. “I was informed by the draft board,” Colonel Holmes wrote, “that it was of interest to Senator Fulbright's office that Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, should be admitted to the ROTC program … I believe that he purposely deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft classification.”

Both Clintons, and to a lesser degree Mr. Blumenthal, are able practitioners in the gentle art of political deception. During his run for the U.S. Senate, Mr. Blumenthal was found to have misled his constituents by declaring or strongly suggesting several times that he had actively served in the Vietnam War. In fact, Mr. Blumenthal pursued five deferments as aggressively as Mr. Clinton and served in Washington D. C. in the Marine Reserves. His misrepresentations were explored in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) documentary titled “Heroes, Frauds and Imposters” that was not widely distributed in Connecticut during Mr. Blumenthal’s U.S. Senate run.

Mrs. Clinton herself is dripping in controversy: The blood of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods calls out for justice; the mother of Sean Smith -- a hero who died on a roof of the American compound in Benghazi attempting to save the life of Mr. Stevens, the personal representative in Libya of President Barack Obama -- has attested that Mrs. Clinton lied to her when the former Secretary of State claimed that the assault on the compound had been precipitated by an amateur film defaming the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. In fact, Libyan president Muhammad Magariaf charged soon after the attack that elements of Ansar al-Sharia linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were responsible for the killings. The FBI is now investigating the misuse of Mrs. Clinton’s private server and hundreds of top secret e-mails that were never routed for classification to the proper authorities.

The six members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation, all of whom are passionate supporters of Mrs. Clinton, were routinely nominated by acclamation at the state Democratic nominating convention. Mr. Blumenthal, taking his cues from the national Democratic Party campaign playbook, offered plaudits to socialist Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders but, as expected, cast his lot with Mrs. Clinton.  Mr. Blumenthal has yet to be molested by Connecticut reporters anxious to drape Mrs. Clinton, an albatross, about his neck. Although Mr. Trump may be, as some conservatives think, a rude, political vulgarian, no Americans have been slaughtered by Islamic militants on the roof of Trump Tower.