Reply #26: Tweety is an idiot. The NYT screwed up big time with their story. However . . .

[beachmom]

Blumenthal still has some work to do. Two more instances have since surfaced from the Conn. press. Colin McEnroe has been defending Blumenthal and going after the NYT. However he said this yesterday:

http://blogs.courant.com/colin_mcenroe_to_wit/2010/05/blumenthal-fire-blazes-up.html

My feeling that the Times published a shoddy piece does not equal a feeling that Blumenthal is sin-free. And if a lot of new instances like this one turn up, he's going to die a death by 1,000 cuts.

To stop it, he'll have to own the problem even more than he has so far. He'll have to say something like, "I was not aware of doing this at the time, but I clearly have a tendency to get swept up in a rush of enthusiasm and kinship, when I'm talking about veterans, and to make it sound like I served with them in Vietnam when, obviously, I didn't. I'm embarrassed by this and will do what I can to make it up to them." He's going to have to embrace, essentially, Chris Shay's argument -- that Blumenthal had gotten kind of weird in the way he talked about himself and Vietnam. It's counterintuitive, but the way to survive something like this is to say something so big about yourself that it renders further news developments moot. You want to stop the cyclings of news. If you're Larry Craig, you say "I'm gay" and that makes all new proofs of your gay behavior not interesting. You have to be honest with yourself and your handlers about how big the problem is and acknowledge it right away at that size, instead of letting it drip, drip, drip into a pool of that size.