One member of President Obama’s team of crack super-scientists sent down to figure out the oil spill situation is no longer part of the club. It turns out that Jonathan I. Katz, a professor of astrophysics at Wash. U. is an avowed homophobe (literally) and also it seems not a climate denialist but in some sense a climate change celebrator. So he’s been kicked off the team.
It sounds like our pal Sue Lowden, the Republican frontrunner in the Nevada Senate race, has a whole different set of problems on her hands. And this one has nothing to do with Chickens or Health Care. Ironically, though, it is about in-kind payments. So it is sort of like barter.
The gist is that a supporter bought a big tour bus for Lowden and then in essence gave it to her campaign. Which is nice, but also amounts to a campaign contribution of arguably tens of thousands and perhaps as much as one hundred thousand dollars. And you’re not allowed to give goods to a candidate in any greater value than you could give cash. Adding to the fun, Lowden herself seems not have had any understanding of the relevant campaign finance laws, or at least not enough to come up with a consistent story. Her right-wing opponent, Danny Tarkanian, is playing the whole thing for all its worth.
As you may have heard the Times has a very rough piece out on Connecticut Attorney General and Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal. The gist is that he has frequently given the impression that he served in Vietnam despite never having been deployed outside the USA. Add on the familiar series of deferments that kept him at work and at school during the peak years of Vietnam. Par for the course in itself but adding to the damage of the dishonesty in this case. When I read it, it wasn’t quite as bad as the billing. It struck me as more deeply embarrassing for him than catastrophic. But certainly not great.
They’ve got one video where he clearly says when ‘I served in Vietnam.’ That quote alone — especially since they’ve got it on video — is pretty devastating. But the other instances are more ambiguous or have him saying that he served during the ‘Vietnam era.’ When they point out that he or his staff didn’t correct profiles that referred to him as a Vietnam vet that seems like a bit of a stretch.
Ambinder says Blumenthal’s holding a presser tomorrow to respond. Josh Green notes that the story could be much more damaging for Blumenthal than your ordinary pol simply because his rep has always been so spotless and untouchable. My own sense is that the story will likely have less effect than people imagine. But I’d only bet half of nothing on that.
One thing that’s very clear is that this is the kind of bad press that makes a twenty point lead really come in handy.
TPM Reader JZ on the Blumenthal story …
I think this is devastating for Blumenthal and I’ll explain why. I moved to Ct. three years ago and over time heard about Blumenthal. He was popular, but aside from some of the cases he brought, most people I knew couldn’t say much of anything about him. He was largely inscrutable (if prominent local papers thought he served in Vietnam, then he’s clearly not all that well known).
Reading your emails, it seems pretty clear that most of our readers who’ve written in think the Richard Blumenthal story is devastating for him and not just a bump in the road. I have to confess though that even on a few readings I found the piece weaker than the billing. As I noted below, that one quote from Blumenthal from 2008 is devastating. Clearly serving or not serving in a war zone is something you have a pretty palpable and immediate recollection of. And given the guy’s other ambiguous statements about what he was doing during Vietnam, you do have to wonder, what was going through his head? (And yes, that’s meant largely rhetorically.) Read More
Sounds like we’ve got a pretty heavy scandal day in front of us. First Lowden and Blumenthal, now abstinence-hawking Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) is going to pack it in over an affair with a staffer.
See video of Souder discussing abstinence with staffer.
So far I’d say my favorite part of Souder’s resignation statement is saying the “poisonous environment of Washington” makes it to hard on his family to carry on in office post-affair revelation.
Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) managed to record a video on the importance of abstinence with his mistress.
Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli says he’ll donate $55,000 he received from a scam Navy vets charity … as long as the head of the scam charity is convicted of a crime.
GOPer and former cop running for Rep. Delahunt’s seat involved as supervisor in pattern of ‘inappropriate’ strip searches of underage girls.
The most telling thing about the account is the time when the officer under Perry’s command not only insisted on checking whether one of the girl’s in question had marijuana in her crotch but somehow also felt the need to see whether she was hiding marijuana in her breasts. Which seems like it would be a more challenging feat.