Richard Blumenthal may have breathed life back into his political career yesterday, with a press conference in which he vigorously defended his record:
But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you
Sorry, hit the wrong button. Here it is:
One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election…. You know what it was. It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted…. I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it…. Let me say this: I don’t believe that I ought to quit because I’m not a quitter.
Whoops, fat finger again. Okay, now I finally really have it:
On a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that. But I will not allow anyone to take a few missplaced words and impugn my record of service to my country. I served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves, and I am proud of it.
Good luck with that. Wait, I think it’s actually working:
I think it is clear now what happened: Blumenthal allowed other people’s faulty ideas about his service to persist, until the legend got to the point where he himself stepped over the line. Even though he has stated point blank that he never served in Viet Nam, he was more than happy to lie by omission and to allow people to have mistaken ideas about his service.
Because left-wing epistemic closure is a stubborn thing:
No direct, intentional lies, wherein a lie is defined as a misstatement conveyed with the intention to mislead.
I guess it depends upon what the meaning of “in” is. Or maybe, whether the video was doctored by the vast rignt-wing conspiracy to insert the word “in” when he actually said “during.”
Not that the truth matters anyway:
Whatever the truth, he insisted with a great deal of conviction that his lapses weren’t intentional. And the evidence so far suggests that in other settings, he didn’t intend to mislead. Perhaps most important, no Dems are cutting and running right now. They seem to have closed ranks behind him.
Blumenthal doesn’t need to fool all the people all the time, just 50% plus 1.
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