The hit:
"We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam," Blumenthal was quoted as saying. "And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support."
The Times story continued by saying that Blumenthal, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.
link: http://www.courant.com/...
The run:
"McMahon Strikes Blumenthal In NYT Article," the McMahon camp proclaimed on its site. "The Blumenthal Bombshell comes at the end of more than 2 months of deep, persistent research by Republican Linda McMahon's Senate campaign."
snip
Now the McMahon campaign has quietly removed the post from its Web site taking credit for the story.
link: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
The spin:
The McMahon campaign has acknowledged taking down the post. McMahon spokesman Shawn McCoy emails:
We took it down. The substance of the New York Times report is what's important. The New York Times and Ray Hernandez researched, wrote and broke this report, and the questions it raises about Dick Blumenthal raise serious questions that only he can answer.
link: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
The part they left out:
It seems that Lady McMahon wanted to heat up the Connecticut Senate race - which had been a snoozer, admittedly, after Dodd stepped aside and Blumenthal stepped up. So, she went and phoned this one in from the yacht...or the Greenwich estate...or the million dollar townhouse...or the oceanfront condo in Florida (link to all of Linda's McMillions here: http://www.greenwichtime.com/... ).
Blumenthal will be holding a press conference to address the allegations at 2 pm EST, which will be streamed live on http://www.courant.com/ .
Grab your popcorn and hold onto your seats, either this race just got interesting, or this is the best Linda's McMillions can buy.
UPDATE:
Richard Blumenthal from the presser during the Q&A:
I regret that I misspoke and I take full responsibility.
My live transcript of the quote.
Presser is still going on and it's going well - honestly, I don't think this will have a big impact on the race (or at least not the impact McMahon wanted).