The New York Times is being criticized for selective editing in its reporting on Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s misleading accounts of his military record—the paper posted on its website a clip of a speech where the Democratic Senate candidate makes his most direct claim to have served in Vietnam, but it edited that clip to leave out a nearby passage where he accurately depicts himself as serving “during the Vietnam War.” The Times rejected the criticism in a response to Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent:
The New York Times in its reporting uncovered Mr. Blumenthal’s long and well established pattern of misleading his constituents about his Vietnam War service, which he acknowledged in an interview with the Times. Mr. Blumenthal needs to be candid with his constituents about whether he went to Vietnam or not, since his official military records clearly indicate he did not.
It is commendable to hold misleading politicians to account. Our question is how universal this concern is at the New York Times. Political mavens may recall Ronald Reagan as one of the more striking examples of an elected official promoting fantasies about his military record; Reagan’s claims to have personally witnessed the Holocaust as part of a government film crew at the end of World War II were first reported by the Washington Post‘s Lou Cannon in 1984 (3/5/84):
When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir visited the White House last November 29, he was impressed by a previously undisclosed remembrance of President Reagan about the Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II. Repeating it to his Israeli Cabinet five days later, Shamir said Reagan had told him that he had served as a photographer in a U.S. Army unit assigned to film Nazi death camps.
Shamir said Reagan also informed him that he had saved a copy of the film because he believed that, in time, people would question what had happened….
Shamir’s account appeared December 6 in the Israeli newspaper Maariv. It was confirmed last week to Edward Walsh, the Washington Post correspondent in Jerusalem, by Israeli Cabinet secretary Dan Meridor.
On Feb. 15, famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal met with Reagan in the White House and heard a similar story. Wiesenthal told Washington Post reporter Joanne Omang that he and Reagan had held “a very nice meeting,” during which the president related “some of his personal remarks from the end of the war.”
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, also was present. He told Omang that Reagan said he was “a member of the Signal Corps taking pictures of the camps” and that he had saved a copy of the film and shown it a year later to a person who thought the reports were exaggerated.
Reagan, in fact, never left the United States during World War II, when he worked for the military in Hollywood making propaganda films. His footage of the death camps was a fantasy.
Now, this is not a case of a candidate for the Senate padding his resume; this is a sitting president offering an elaborate fabrication to another world leader. Yet the New York Times seems to have completely ignored the Post‘s scoop. A thorough search of the Times‘ archives via Nexis turns up a solitary mention, in Reagan’s obituary (6/6/04), and a remarkably rosy framing at that:
His flights of imagination remained equally vivid when he went to the White House. In 1983 he told Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel that as part of his war duties he had been assigned to film the Nazi death camps.
Apparently some politicians mislead, while others have vivid flights of imagination.
Mike this is reaching even for you. For a politician to re tell an ancedote about viewing survivors and another lying about actual combat are two diff things. Also in 83 you didnt have the internet where everything word and sound bute could be seen and bs could be called. For a politician to still lie in this day and age means he is either to dumb or has too much hubris to be in office.
“too much hubris”
Sounds a lot like Reagan to me.
Yes, this is well within the proper reach of reproach. Bush, Cheney, Reagan—all our big war lovers have evade, skipped, jumped, dodged, lied,,etc etc. battle. No service or certainly no combat service. This is totally reasonable reproach. I don’t approve of the Blumenthal fudge—unnecessary for one thing–but it hardly has anything to compare with the Republican’s well-proven uttery hypocrisy about this over and over again. He WAS in uniform—about as close to combat as Reagan or Bush, Jr. Cheney of course had his multiple deferments. (How many votes for Cheney as most evil VP ever?)
Again, Blumenthal was at least in uniform instead of living in the permanent Reagan-style fantasy world. Reagan lied repeatedly about many things—the cumulative effect to present a completely Hollywood-style re-creation of himself and his life. This is at least as bad if not worse. Reagan was arrogating a moral high horse for himself that he simply did not deserve. He was a pathological fantasist.
Why hark back to the New York Times’s relentless kid-glove treatment of Reagan, Bush and Cheney? Granted, the three of them appear worse and worse with the passage of time, but that’s another subject, or any number of other subjects.
Many Democrats as well as Republicans see what the New York Times editorial called “misdirection” as misrepresentation so odious as to disqualify Richard Blumenthal for public office. I wasn’t alone in expecting the Times to call for his resignation, both as candidate for the U.S. Senate and as Attorney General of Connecticut. Instead, the Grey Lady provided contemporary journalism students with a prime example of editorial weasel-wording.
The Times, however, should get credit for putting its Blumenthal exposé on the front page. Its subsequent editorial raises this question: Where do we draw the line when it comes to dishonest candidates for public office?
Well, Roger, if we want to hold Blumenthal “accountable” for being a “dishonest candidate for public office” how about we make the NYT prove it? The story mentioned one episode where Blumenthal said he served in Viet-Nam but left out that in that same speech, moments earlier, he accurately characterized his service.
The other examples the NYT used were an accurate presentation of his service in 2008 and a possible (NEXIS isn’t clear) example in 2003. Yes, they had to go back seven years to find one example about a guy who has made hundreds of speeches to veteran’s groups.
In other words, the estimable NYT tried to paint Blumenthal as a serial liar in much the same way Times reporters lied about Vice President Al Gore. Frank Rich consistently lied about Gore, as did Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages and Katherine Seeley on the news pages. Seeley was only outdone by Ceci Connolly of the equally execrable Washington Post.
If the NYT wants to wage a phony war against Blumenthal, that’s their choice but they shouldn’t be calling the guy a liar in a story that just doesn’t hold up. You shouldn’t swallow whole a story made of weak tea.
I think George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other pacifists should be extolled for standing against war when they were young.
Well, they were personal pacifists which means they against combat for themselves but thought it was great for eighteen-year-olds with nothing else to do. Remember, the pacifistic American people gave themselves the present day volunteer military service and the wonderful taxpayer funded state department security services like Xe, the rightwing Christian militia-like killer corporation that protects people like Maliki and Karzai. Wheee…fun, huh?
I have read that Reagan repeatedly began speeches in Hollywood during world war 2 with the line:”I’ve just come back from our boys in the Pacific Theatre …” Reagan never left Hollywood during WW2 and he was rarely out of uniform. The great man was a serial fantasizer.
Many of his devotees suffer from the same disease and want to change the names of highways and airports to make a hero of their hero. They also fantasize that we can control oil spills, coal mine disasters and Wall St stealing with “small” government.
Wow! A very astute series of comments on this one for sure. But I still wonder whether any of you guys would buy a used car from Richard Blumenthal.
Testing … testing …
Ronnie never imagined this:
http://www.bluesforpeace.com/lyrics/imagine.htm
He may have had nightmares about it.
“For a politician to retell an ancedote about viewing survivors and another lying about actual combat are two different things.”
Yeah, one’s a Republican, the other a Democrat.
“Also in 83 you didnt have the internet where everything… could be seen and bs could be called. For a politician to still lie in this day and age means he is either to dumb or has too much hubris to be in office.”
Right, 1983 (1984 actually); back in the days of quill pens and steam ships, when it took weeks for mail to be delivered by horse and carriage, nobody was literate, and no one could have possibly have done any research to determine whether or not the President was lying (or delusional). Back then it was perfectly okay for dumb, lying, hubristic politicians to hold office (indeed, to be President). Nothing harmful or objectionable in lying about the Holocaust for political gain. Certainly misrepresenting one’s military record is immeasurably worse, right?
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