One of the major national news stories this week involves statements from Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal ’67 about his military service. The New York Times reported Monday that Blumenthal had never served in Vietnam, despite having said at a 2008 ceremony to honor veterans, "We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam. And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war...we owe our military men and women unconditional support."
The Times article included several other examples of misleading comments from Blumenthal, who is running for the U.S. Senate. It also noted that numerous publications have called Blumenthal a Vietnam veteran and his campaign evidently has not sought corrections.
On Tuesday, Blumenthal held a press conference where he called the false statement "a few misplaced words," but said that he took "full responsibility." And in a Wednesday story, the Times published an interview in which former congressman Christopher Shays of Connecticut said he had noticed discrepancies, over the years, in his political colleague's description of his military service. (According to the Times, Blumenthal received five military deferments before serving in the Marine Corps Reserve.) At this writing, the top link on Blumenthal's campaign website was to an Associated Press article headlined, "Video shows Blumenthal correctly stating service." In the same speech in which Blumenthal said he "served in Vietnam," he phrased things more carefully at a different moment, saying he "served in the military during the Vietnam era," the article reports.
Observers on the matter included Larry Pressler, M.P.A. ’66, J.D. ’71, a Vietnam veteran and former Republican senator from South Dakota who, in a Times op-ed titled "The Technicality Generation," commented on privileged young men's lack of integrity during the Vietnam era. Slate published a roundtable with staffers including David Plotz ’92 and Nathan Heller ’06 discussing Blumenthal's actions, his motivations, and the context. And Marc Ambinder ’01, politics editor of The Atlantic, writes that even if Blumenthal told "no direct, intentional lies," the failure to correct erroneous reports about his service is a critical shortcoming:
Ambitious politicians have teams of communications professionals devoted to shaping, manipulating, and repairing their public images....Even if he did not intend to mislead voters about his service, it is incumbent upon him to make sure that he did not use his position to perpetuate a myth that enhanced said power.
Also on the Atlantic site, Atlantic Wire associate editor Max Fisher offers his picks of insightful commentary on the matter, including one by Matthew Yglesias ’03.
Also in headlines this week:
- Dr. Harold E. Varmus, A.M. ’62, S.D. ’96, the Nobel Prize-winning former director of the National Institutes of Health, has been appointed the director of the National Cancer Institute by President Obama. Varmus, who shared the Nobel Prize in 1989 with J. Michael Bishop, M.D. ’62, S.D. ’04 (read an excerpt from Bishop's memoir in the magazine archives) for work showing how malfunctioning genes can cause cancer, is currently president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “There are tremendous new opportunities in cancer research,” Varmus said in an interview. “Everyone feels a sense of accelerating success.” Varmus delivered Harvard's 1996 Commencement address; an excerpt from his book The Art and Politics of Science appeared in this magazine’s March-April 2009 Open Book section.
- Adam Wheeler, who was accepted to Harvard as a transfer student in 2007 and withdrew before graduation, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to 20 criminal charges including larceny, identity fraud, falsifying an endorsement or approval, and pretending to hold a degree. Prosecutors said that Wheeler, 23, received more than $45,000 in scholarships, grants, and financial aid based on fraudulent application materials. Wheeler is accused of falsifying transcripts from Phillips Andover Academy and MIT, when in fact he graduated from a public high school in Delaware and had attended Bowdoin College. According to court documents, he also fraudulently claimed to have perfect SAT scores. Prosecutors said that Wheeler, who was scheduled to graduate this year, withdrew during a disciplinary proceeding in which he was accused of plagiarizing the work of Cogan University Professor Stephen Greenblatt on an application for a Rhodes scholarship, and that he subsequently applied to Yale and Brown. A Boston Globe article on Wednesday examined how Wheeler managed for so long to avoid getting caught; a Harvard Crimson article from Tuesday quoted students who knew him; and the New Republic on Tuesday posted what it claimed was Wheeler’s résumé, submitted with an application for an internship at that publication.
