Totally with you, and already gave Blumenthal some money. It's Clark Hoyt, though.
I think it would be much funnier if he got 100 letters to
"Chris Hoyt."
This is the way I establish my peculiar credentials for bitching about other people's inaccuracy. Clark it is.
I'm thinking that they guy who asked me for money this morning lied about having served in Vietnam. He looked ten years too young. Tell the NYT.
5: But was he a progressive politician? Otherwise, who cares?
One more instance of 'in' rather than 'during' from Blumenthal in 2008. This doesn't change my sense of the story globally, but I figured I should link it.
Anyone care to join me?
I just can't take your call to action seriously, LB, what with the post title being blue.
When you can see that the post title is orange, M♣tch, then you will have achieved enlightenment.
I did want to say that I appreciate the work you've done looking into and then clearly laying out what's going on with this story.
Yeah, you've been kinda leading the blogosphere on this one, LB. Good stuff.
Aw shucks, but not really -- all I did was jump the right way a couple of hours early based on insufficient evidence and a settled distrust of the NYT, and then link to the Hartford Courant guy who actually knew stuff.
Although this is somewhat worse: "I wore the uniform in Vietnam."
Yeah, that's what I linked in 7. Twice, with plenty of accurate statements and the unanimously unconfused reporters, still sounds like plausible slip-of-the-tongue territory to me, but there's clearly some number of incidents over which that wouldn't work.
Doesn't excuse the NYT at all, though, which doesn't seem to have seen the 'uniform' quote before the all-out attack.
13 gets it right. You'd better ask for a refund of your contribution, LB.
Oops -- didn't see 7. Yeah, the Times didn't see it, and I still think the way people talk about their service is wicked fungible, so Team Blumenthal, but that added bit of "uniform" to "in Vietnam" is I think a pretty clear example of, well, if not intention to mislead, then getting carried away with inserting himself into the narrative.
16: It's hard to do mindreading here. What's very clear is that Blumenthal, despite having clearly not wanted to get sent to Vietnam and having taken steps to avoid it at the time, feels strongly affiliated with veterans and has done a lot of political work on veterans' issues, and thinks of his service in the Marine Reserves as a personal connection to veterans' issues. He's certainly inserting himself into the narrative there -- I can come up with special pleading for how it makes sense without his having intended to represent himself as having been in Vietnam-the-country, but at this point I've picked a side, so I'm in advocacy mode and my judgment's shaky.
7,16, 17: There are two distinct issues here, Blumenthal and the reporting etc. in the Times. The second is pretty disgraceful, no matter what. For instance, Gail Collins in the course of an insipid "online commentary" with David Brooks on the primary results ("Let the Polarization Begin"--don't read it if you value your sanity) says, And Richard Blumenthal, their gold-standard candidate for Senator Chris Dodd's seat in Connecticut turns out to have been making up a war record. I have no qualms on being in advocacy mode on that front.
However, on Blumenthal's behavior itself, I think LB probably gets it pretty right in 16. The whole manner in which politicians and the media talk about military experience (or lack thereof) is an ongoing clusterfuck of such magnitude that I am hesitant to jump in. You can't really even have a "reasoned" discussion about it.
People should seriously watch the video that the AP put up of Blumenthal's entire speech in Norwalk (the basis for the NY Times story). It's quite clear from context that the "in Vietnam" line in that speech was simply a mistake made in an offhand remark in a public speech -- and it wasn't part of his building up a rep for personal cred as a Vietnam vet, it was part of a speech about the need to provide better medical care for Iraq war vets. Having seen the video of the Norwalk speech, I think it's perfectly plausible that the Stamford Advocate just misquoted Blumenthal in the earlier speech. It's really clear to me that there was no master plan of deception on this point, although Blumenthal was clearly happy to draw a connection between his own (extensive) work on Veteran's issues and his own (real, if not particularly dangerous) military service.
19: Yes, this. I'd be interested in seeing the transcript of the actual speech, or better, a video. Because as I said before, I basically didn't have any problem with the comments the Times is holding up for abuse. I think the Stamford comment is more problematic than anything the Times dug up, but based on what we now know about the reporting of Blumenthal's speeches (see the Shelton speech), I'm quite ready to believe the Stamford paper got it all wrong.
19, 20: There is actually a series of videos on YouTube from the 2008 Stamford parade, but it does not look like any captured the speeches. I did note from the article that Chris Shays was also in attendance.
military experience (or lack thereof) is an ongoing clusterfuck of such magnitude
I increasingly find myself predisposed to voting for the candidate who *doesn't* have any military service, because I'm sick to death of hearing about it.
Politicians lie. In the end, I'm not particularly bothered by Hillary's failure to catch flak in Bosnia, Biden's failure to have coal-mining ancestors, Bill's failure to not have sex with that woman, or even Bush's failure to carry out his service in the National Guard.
The real problem is that this stuff is a sideshow, a distraction from the huge lies that are a routine part of doing political business in this country.
Iraqi WMD, now that's a lie.
Mmm. That was, indeed, one of Dr. Dean's selling points for me in '04. No posturing on the issue whatsoever.
This puts me in mind of something that's been bothering me for a while: what recourse does someone have when they believe they've been misquoted in a newspaper?
Here's an example from my own (anonymous) life. When I was in college, I was at a meeting of student activists who gathered to formulate a response to some minor outrage proposed by our undergraduate student government. Our student newspaper had a reporter at the meeting, and the article that ran the following day included a quote attributed to me which I most definitely did not say.
I don't remember reading the article when it was published over twenty years ago, but a few years ago I did the "searching for your name in the on-line archives of the school newspaper" thing and found the article and the bogus quote. So what should I do about it? I'm at about the age when, if I'm going to run for public office, I need to start thinking and preparing for that. The bogus quote includes horrible grammar, an overuse of the word "thing", and -- perhaps most importantly for this discussion -- a hint that the speaker is the sort of wild-eyed radical that I have never been.
So should I contact the newspaper and demand a retraction? How would (or should) the newspaper respond to such a request?
How would (or should) the newspaper respond to such a request?
Pass it around between various editors and shrug. Call the faculty adviser, who will shrug. Then everybody will pretend to lose your e-mail.
Twenty years ago? I'd say there's not much you can do -- if it's just clunky, it's not worth it, and if there's something really damaging in there I can't see how they could ethically scrub the record on the basis of a twenty-years later denial. You might be able to get them to publish a retraction, but again, twenty years later, I think that would only look defensive.
27: Yeah, that's where I'm at. Frankly, the fact that I was even at the meeting will be scandalous enough in some circles.
Oh, and as to 26, no faculty advisor -- completely student run.
22: As someone who came somewhat close to having his own "important personal choices during Vietnam" story*, the Vietnam stuff drives me fucking crazy. The whole thing has morphed into these bullshit stock narratives that don't capture the reality on the ground at all. I was so pleased that what in the end drove my father** to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time ever in 2008 was his disgust at McCain's unserious and hypocritical posturing about his military background.
*My draft number was #13 of all fucking things, but it was two years after it really mattered, and one year after you could plausibly pretend it mattered (low number guys the year ahead of me had to do the physicals but none were drafted as I recall).
**My father was WWII vet who was in action in the Pacific but he does not take that as his "identity" one bit. He has a mildly interesting narrative on how, where and in what role he ended up in during the war. As far as I can tell (and he concurs) most of the WW II narratives are every bit as much BS as the Vietnam ones.
22,29: Reason #3,467 not to fight a war is that it will fuck up your country's politics and politicians for generations.
28.2: Twenty years ago, the student newspaper I was on did have a faculty advisor, but I never met him/her. The editors were very serious about their jobs and ethics, which I why I think you are better off not to request a retraction. A retraction would require contacting the reporter, who will say that he or she wrote an accurate story. Then, it becomes "you said"/"he or she said" and you lose because your say wasn't written down and placed in public twenty years ago. Reporting at a meeting is a difficult bit of work and garbling a quote (or attributing it to the wrong guy) is something that happens, but the sources really need to fix things much sooner.
I'm at about the age when, if I'm going to run for public office, I need to start thinking and preparing for that.
Your mistake was to say anything ever to anyone, obviously, or to attend a meeting at all. Fly below the radar, people.
More seriously, what LB said: to even try to do anything now would look defensive. Meanwhile, set up a google alert for your own name so that you're able to note and address any such future horrible things you're alleged to have said. I believe there are other search alert thingies one can set up.
My father was WWII vet who was in action in the Pacific but he does not take that as his "identity" one bit.
This is how my dad was. It's actually kind of weird to me that the salient facts about him listed on his -- he doesn't have a tombstone so what do we call this? columbarium plaque? -- columbarium plaque are his rank and division (again, no idea of the right word) in the Navy, as well as his war and particular neck of the war. Oh and the color guard and flag stuff at the interment. But hey, veterans cemetary.
28: So are you actually thinking about running for office? If not, I'd say this is absolutely nothing to worry about. If so, dish?
31: I agree with everything you say here, but given that I was most likely REALLY hungover the following day, never actually saw the paper, and only found out about this quote when it was converted to digital form and put on-line in the paper's archives, "the sources really need to fix things much sooner" doesn't really do much for me.
But yeah, I hear you. But since the issue of correcting press accounts was in the air, I thought I'd toss out this nagging question. Thanks for the opinions, all!
34: At some point within the next, say, 6-8 years, sure. I mean, I'll have some TERRIFIC name recognition... :)
6 or so years ago when the NYPost was bashing Alec Baldwin more or less daily, they dug up some shit about him from his college newspaper. Really idiotic stuff about some snippy fight about student council elections that was reprinted in order to mock his silly power struggle and to make sure everyone knew he used to go by Alex. What made it extra hilarious was the fact that the person he was struggling against (and who, IIRC, "won") was a guy I used to work for.
37: With very few exceptions, anybody who bashes you for what you did in college was somebody who was going to something to bash you for anyway. I wouldn't worry about it.
s/b "going to find something to bash"
Alternatively, RWR, you could comb through the paper's archives for errors and come out swinging if that particular story comes up.
41: Ooh, I *like* that one. Plus, it gives me something to have my minions doing while I perfect my plan for world domination. Fly, Google monkeys, fly!!!
Oh, huh. As noticed by a commenter at myleftnutmeg, the writer of this hit piece wrote the Caroline Kennedy hit piece from the 12/2008 Times.
35: Ron, if you're going to be a politician, you need to learn to lie. Just say that you didn't attend the rally, but that a practical-joking friend who did attend pretended to be you in order to say something he knew you'd object to. All you'd need is some obliging friend from those days who is willing to take the rap.
Every would-be John Edwards needs an Andrew Young.
Come to think of it, every Ronald Wilson Reagan needs an Admiral Poindexter, too.
The bogus quote includes horrible grammar, an overuse of the word "thing",
This could cost you the crucial nosflow endorsement.
Every would-be John Edwards needs an Andrew Young.
I might be up for that. Would I get a copy of your sex tape out of the deal?
RWR: If you ask the current editor nicely to please remove an inaccurate 20-year-old article that no one cares about from the on line archives, as a favor to an alum, it's not completely impossible that they will do it. Ask by telephone not by email. Might not solve the wayback machine problem.
In a recent self-google, I found that my town's local weekly put its archives on line, so a current google of me gets a bunch of honor roll appearances and little league soccer scores from the 1970's. Nothing too embarrassing.
48: I would strongly counsel against this.
Remember -- the cover-up is always worse than the crime!
49: Seconding. An earnest young journalism major may make an example of someone who calls with that kind of request.
Come to think of it, I was the editor of my school paper (such as it was!). The only vaguely similar request I received was when the presidents of the Pride group flew into my office asking if copies of the paper that featured a story on them and their group had been mailed to the parents. They hadn't (we only mailed the first two issues per year), but I would have totally yanked the copies going to their parents if they'd needed me to.
LB calls for Clark Hoyt to look into the Blumenthal coverage, et Voila!
Semi-on topic: Via Digby, some interesting data about Bush and Obama rumors at snopes.
Well-played LB. I didn't read the story, just saw the headline, so I would not have known that the NYT story was overblown without your assistance.
m, thank you
52: My poor typing caused one of those rumors. Snopes had to add that he isn't "muslin" either. The gabardine lobby was almost ready to vote McCain.
51: Given that there are gray areas I suspect he will end up basically defensing their coverage. After much more egregious problems with their coverage of the fradulent ACORN videos, he wrote in an e-mail to Brad Friedman, "I still don't see that a correction is in order, because that would require conclusive evidence that The Times was wrong, which I haven't seen." And per my comment on yesterday's Blumenthal thread, at one point he astonishingly made the following defense, "The story says O'Keefe dressed up as a pimp and [Hoyt's emphasis]. trained his hidden camera on Acorn counselors. It does not say he did those two things at the same time."
Yeah, based on the ACORN thing, my understanding is that Hoyt's job is to come up, by any means necessary and no matter how sophistical, with a justification for the Times' behavior.
Feck. Well played, LB, not "Well-played LB".
52: some interesting data about Bush and Obama rumors at snopes.
We should have contest to make up nice rumours about Obama to counteract the liars on the right.
m, why oh why do so many people on the right make shit up? what's that about?
55, 56: "Defensing" = defending with sophistry.
54: I beg your pardon. We most certainly were not.
59: Not the Bathyscaphe part of the gabardine lobby, of course.
I'm sure that Clark Hoyt will say that a correction is in order.
Holy Fuck! It's a whole fucking Blumenthal/Vietnam industry at the Times! Look at this piece of dreck from Clyde Haberman, "On a New York Memorial, Truths From Vietnam".
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general and embattled Democratic candidate for senator, has probably already made plans for the Memorial Day weekend. He's got a lot of campaigning to do, and some explaining, too.
But if he can find time, he may want to drive down to New York and visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Water Street in the financial district. There, he could learn a thing or two about that war from men who actually fought it -- unlike Mr. Blumenthal, who has on occasion claimed to have been there, though the closest he may have gotten to a Vietnam experience is at Saigon Kitchen in Hartford.Led me to crank out a hot-tempered and probably counterproductive e-mail to the guy (something I thought I had given up years ago) "Are you serious? This may be the worst piece of holier-than-thou dreck I've ever read in the Times, and that is saying something. ..." ). A considered letter to the editor or to Hoyt is probably a much better idea.
Good for you, JP. But you didn't send it?
61: I'm sure that Clark Hoyt will say that a correction is in order.
Not sure if you're playing it straight here (see 62, they've got a whole Daily Blumenthal thing cranking). But I suspect that you are right in that Hoyt may come out with a request for a very narrow correction--they should have acknowledged the other statement at the beginning of the video, something like that. Otherwise, good story. We'll be in "What do we tell the children?" territory by next week.
63: No, I sent the motherfucking thing to the motherfucker. "As bad as Jeff Gerth", "nearly as bad as the Times' ACORN tape coverage", invective enough to allow him to dismiss me as crank (I did include the link to the Hartford Courant blog article. Signed with my real name and sent from my "real" e-mail account. As penance I'll do the considered letter to the right people tomorrow.
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Bubba Ho-tep: still really weird.
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I don't see why you think I said Hoyt would say a correction is in order in relation to this particular story. I was merely speaking generally, in the manner of a New York Times reporter.
Anyway, is the Connecticut AG related to the former Clinton official of the same last name?
66: Is it worth seeing? I like BC, though not in that obsessive way.
The publicity hungry AG has at times benefited from the yewllow press.
What goes around comes around: http://blog.craigslist.org/2010/04/sad-state-of-affairs-at-the-new-york-times/
OMG, he went after hooker ads on Craigslist --- well, fuck him. Let the New York Times make up whatever lies they want.
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Just in case anyone is not aware of SEK's latest calamity (chronicled in much more detail on Facebook).
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Can you lot just get a grip and stop behaving like a Bruce Sterling novel?
77. The United States will devolve into something like the Holy Roman Empire, where a third of the empire could be at war with each other before anybody was constitutionally obliged to tell the Emperor.
re: 75
Yes, I want my black-JFK/Elvis movies to feature more realistic undead, dammit.
65: Dude gets up early in the morning--got a "Thank you for your note" note timestamped 6:03 AM.
One last link then I will go do penance with a nice reasonable note to Hoyt or Letter to the Editor. Via Washington Monthly, a veteran Connecticut newscaster, I can tell you that I've covered Dick Blumenthal hundreds of times over the last 30 years, and that I have never, ever, heard him misrepresent his military service. Not even once."
80: He was also apparently on the swim team, although the Times still swears he wasn't.
According to Politico, Hoyt will do a column tomorrow on the story. Unsurprisingly, Bill Keller is defending the piece. Apparently the Times did have the full copy of the video. Media Matters recap.
And the Times continues to display a lot of attitude in its coverage of Blumenthal. From their coverage of his acceptance of the Democratic nomination* last night
But what should have been a raucous display of unbridled enthusiasm, given Mr. Blumenthal's tireless glad-handing, favor-banking, and headline-grabbing in 20 years as attorney general, was complicated by a palpable sense of uneasiness. [emphasis added]*McMahon won the Republican nomination 737-632. Her campaign continues to trumpet their role and it highlights the timing opf the story:
A McMahon campaign source boasted to POLITICO that if McMahon finishes this weekend's convention ahead of her chief rival for the GOP nomination, former Rep. Rob Simmons, "a big part of the reason will have been our strategic decision to put our fingerprints on this story - a story that we were involved with."
McMahon does have what is probably the only campaign ad in history showing the candidate kicking someone in the balls. (Then again maybe Jesse Ventura had one as well.)
Hoyt piece is up. Surprise! He defends the coverage.
84: Per standard form, he does give the very narrow "slap on the wrist" near the end:
He neglects to mention that if the story had included all of those things, it would have had to have been written quite differently. But the larger issue he really ignores is the totality of their coverage--the original article, the sleazy give Shays free rein, the editorial, the 4 "experts" analyzing the general phenomenon of service misrepresentation, the column on the NYC Vietnam War Memorial written just to blast Blumenthal, the subsequent mischaracterizations from folks like Gail Collins. And I'm sure this will now be the framing narrative for the rest of their coverage of the Connecticu Senate race.Were there flaws in the story? Yes: It should have said more about how it originated; it should have provided mitigating information far higher; it should have noted that his official biography was accurate. The full video should have been posted so readers could make their own judgments.
When we find the WMDs in Syria, you'll feel bad for suggesting that the Times had any sort of agenda.
Now this is interesting. Illinois Republican senate candidate tells folks he's an Iraq war vet. Guess whether that is true or not. I mean, you didn't read about it in the Times.