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| Blumenthal |
A few days after the publication of U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s virtual appearance at New Haven’s Communist Party Amistad Awards ceremony had appeared in several news venues, Blumenthal made himself available to questions from Hartford Courant reporter Chris Keating.
Connecticut
Commentary’s account of the New Haven based Communist Party Amistad Award proceedings
may be found here: Blumenthal,
Dancing with the Enemy?
Keating’s story, “Senator defends presence at event”, is
subtitled “Blumenthal says he was unaware of its Communist Party ties.”
The lede to the story reads: “U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal says he would not have attended a recent
awards ceremony in New Haven if he knew it was tied to the Communist Party. He
has been criticized by Republicans and conservative media outlets for
attending.” Blumenthal has yet to be criticized by his associates in the U.S.
Congress, and much of Connecticut’s media likely will be satisfied with
Blumenthal’s defense.
In a telephone
interview with Keating, Blumenthal offered a number of mitigating factors. “He
had no idea,” Keating writes, “that the event was linked to the Communist Party.”
Blumenthal is quoted
in the story: “My understanding was that this ceremony was strictly a labor
event,’' Blumenthal said Friday in a telephone interview. “If I had known the
details, I wouldn’t have gone ... I go to a lot of events, places, meetings,
rallies, and ceremonies in Connecticut. I’m delighted to be invited anywhere,
and in this instance, I was invited by local labor unions to honor these three
individuals, and that’s why I was there. That’s pretty much it... Let me just
say very emphatically, I’m a Democrat and a strong believer in American
capitalism. I have been consistently a Democrat and a strong supporter and
believer in American capitalism.’'
Borrowing a line from U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a close friend, Blumenthal then offered his response to ongoing criticism from “Republicans” and “conservative” sources: “People are going to do what they’re going to do. I’m just going to keep doing my job for the people of Connecticut. There’s a lot at stake in the Senate right now - voting rights, the ongoing pandemic, making childcare affordable, lowering prescription drug prices. That’s where my focus is,” leaving the readers of the Courant to suppose that he had semi-consciously wandered into a Communist mare’s nest because his mind was centered on more important things.
It was President
Lyndon Johnson who once criticized a political opponent as being “unable to
walk and chew gum at the same time.”
The notion that
Blumenthal had leant his considerable prestige to New Haven’s Communist Party inadvertently
because he had been distracted by more important concerns is a bit hard to
swallow, because Blumenthal, during his twenty years as Connecticut’s Attorney
General and his ten years in the U.S. Senate, had multiple times appeared in
news accounts as someone who could navigate exceedingly well and balance various
political balls like an expert side-show juggler.
Not used to filing incomplete
reports, Keating noted “Blumenthal praised the winners of the annual ‘Amistad
Award,’ which is administered by the Connecticut People’s World Committee. The
committee is affiliated with the Communist Party USA, and supporters were
celebrating the party’s 102nd anniversary.”
And indeed, Joelle Fishman -- chair
of the Connecticut Communist Party USA, who also serves on the executive board
of the Alliance of Retired Americans in Connecticut, “an active member of many
economic rights and social justice organizations,” according to her lustrous
Communist Party USA biography – knows, unlike Blumenthal, how to walk and chew
gum at the same time.
In a June 2021 report
to the Communist Party Political Action Commission, Fishman wrote,
“I would like to start by quoting the first and only Palestinian member of
Congress, Rashida Tlaib from Detroit. Speaking on the House floor in opposition
to military aid or money to Israel, she said: ‘I am a reminder to
colleagues that Palestinians do indeed exist, that we are humans. My ancestors
and current family in Palestine deserve the world to hear their history without
obstruction. . . . We must, with no hesitation, demand our country
recognize [that] the unconditional support of Israel has enabled the erasure of
Palestinian life and the denial of the rights of millions of refugees.’”
One cannot imagine
Blumenthal, who is Jewish, unabashedly supporting House member Tlaib’s program.
Blumenthal has in the past focused on Israel’s precarious position in the
Middle East, a state surrounded by aggressive neighbors, Iran among them, who
have pledged numerous times to push Israel into the sea. Fishman, who ran on
the Communist Party ticket for the U.S. Congress in Connecticut from 1973 to
1982, is by contrast fiercely focused primarily on boosting Communist Party prestige
and membership by inviting such as Blumenthal to speak to it at the 102
anniversary of the Communist Party USA.
Caught red-handed
(pun intended) with both hands sunk deeply into a Communist Party cookie jar, Blumenthal
has now wiggled free of easily dismissed “conservative criticism” by pleading
1) unfocussed by the greater good, he hadn’t realized it was a Communist cookie
jar, and 2) there were no cookies in the jar in any case.
Blumenthal is up for
re-election in November 2022.
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