Dick Doesn't Know Dick

I plain flat out just don't like Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Reason number one is that Blumenthal lied about serving in South Vietnam so as to burnish his credentials with veterans. He has since said he "misspoke" and has offered a half-hearted apology.

My dad, who would be 91 this year if he was still alive, served two full-year tours of duty in Vietnam. He was old in comparative terms when he went there in 1967 for the first tour and even older the second time. By my estimate, he was 48 when he went over there the first time. While he was not an infantryman humping a ruck in the boonies, he was in a war zone. Moreover, he was there for the Tet Offensive where no place in the whole God forsaken country was safe.

Dad had to take a medical retirement in 1972 because his body was too worn out to effectively serve in the Army. In retrospect, a lot of his ailments like angina were stress related. Not PTSD but just plain old stress which took its toll on his middle-aged body. He died nine years later from congestive heart failure.  He had just turned 62 a few days earlier.

I missed out having a father around during much of my childhood and adolescence. My dad was serving overseas and we didn't or couldn't accompany him on those tours of duty. It is what it is. Obviously, I don't blame Blumenthal for this but his lies about serving in Vietnam just infuriate me.

I didn't know too much about his opponent Linda McMahon except of her connection with pro wrestling. However, reading her campaign bio I found out that she is a native of New Bern, North Carolina and is a a graduate of East Carolina University.

Being from eastern NC and going to ECU puts Linda McMahon a whole lot closer to the average person and their concerns than being a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law like Blumenthal. Call that reverse snobbery, if you will, but I think we as a nation have for too long put too much credence in an Ivy League degree. Just look at the state in which the so-called elites have put this country. Enough is enough.