Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

A twitter war has broken out between Connecticut Democrat U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal and President Donald Trump. Following Blumenthal’s early denigration of Secretary of State Jeff Sessions – prior to his interrogation of former Senator Sessions, Blumenthal broadly hinted that Sessions and the KKK were on friendly terms – and following Blumenthal’s not so subtle hints that Trump may have collaborated with the Ruskies to damage the presidential prospects of Democrat presidential contender Hillary Clinton. Trump, never one to suffer fools gladly, struck back, using twitter as a rhetorical cattle prod.

U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, up for re-election this year, brusquely but effectively brushed aside Hartford Courant reporter Daniela Altimari's timely and legitimate question; after all, it’s still a free country, and refusing to comment on pointed questions is one of the most often used tools in the toolbox of incumbent politicians with high favorability ratings. Asked to comment on charges that President Barack Obama had paid Iran $400 million in ransom for  four American hostages, Mr. Blumenthal waved away the reporter by refusing to comment and then took to his heels. This is not the first time Mr. Blumenthal hit the mattresses when he found himself face to face during an election period with a reporter who had asked him a legitimate but politically prickly question.

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.”

U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s awkward false claim, made or intimated several times , that he had served as a marine in Vietnam rose out of the newspaper morgues recently after former New York Times political writer Ray Hernandez joined a Washington D.C. PR firm. The story in the Hartford Courant, “ NY Times Reporter Who Was Fed Blumenthal Vietnam Scoop Will Join DC Firm Led By One Time McMahon Adviser ”, actually is a story about a story, a story twice removed.

Blumenthal U.S. Sen. Dick Blumenthal, recently appointed to the Veteran’s Affairs Committee , may have had yet another Zelig moment when, resisting efforts to regulate abortion, he declared, “I'm new to the Senate but I'm not new to this battle. Since the days of Roe v. Wade, when I clerked for Justice Blackmun, as a state legislator, as attorney general, I have fought this battle.” Following Mr. Blumenthal’s remark, a CTMirror reporter commented, “the problem is, Blumenthal clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun in 1974, the year after Blackmun wrote the Roe v. Wade decision,” causing Mr. Blumenthal’s chief of staff, Laurie Rubiner, to erupt indignantly, “This is a very unfair route you are going down. We'll remember this." In a previous incarnation, Ms. Rubiner was the Vice President for Public Policy for Planned Parenthood, described in Ms. Rubiner’s Planned Parenthood biography as the “nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care advocate and ...

On this Veteran’s Day, it will be well to remind ourselves that there are those among us who steal valor and suck the honor from the marrow of the nation’s heroic bones. A few months ago, the Australian Broadcasting System (ABC) put together a documentary called “Stolen Valor.” Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who lied numerous times about his service in Vietnam, is among the dark characters in the film.