Blumenthal Credibility on the Line After Misrepresenting Vietnam Service

FILE: Connecticut Attorney General and Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Richard Blumenthal stood with veterans in May to discuss misstatements about his military service during the Vietnam War. (AP Photo) (AP2010)

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's credibility is on the line after admitting last week that he misspoke about his service in Vietnam, but the top official in charge of electing Democrats says it won't mar his reputation.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said Sunday that Blumental was wrong to say that he had served in the Vietnam War when he was a Marine Reservist who never left U.S. soil, but that he's a known and reliable official for Connecticut voters.

"The interesting thing about Connecticut ... pretty intimate state. People tend to know their political leaders. And Attorney General Blumenthal has served for a lengthy period of time, got a very strong track record on military and veterans issues, for example," Kaine told "Fox News Sunday."

"What the voters of Connecticut will wrestle with as the attorney general, somebody that they've known -- he's been in office a long time. I think they have a sense of who he is," Kaine added.

But Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Blumenthal, who got five deferments to avoid going to war, can't possibly have an excuse for claiming he was in Vietnam when he wasn't.

"The statements were knowingly wrong. I mean, you know what you did and when you did it and how you did it," Steele said. "He knowingly misrepresented what he did. And that's a serious concern for a lot of voters out there."

Last week, Blumenthal was outed for several occasions in which he said he had served in Vietnam. Video and newspaper articles showed him several times suggesting he had served in country during the war, including in a 2009 Connecticut Post article in which he was quoted saying, "When we returned from Vietnam, I remember the taunts, the verbal and even physical abuse we encountered."

The attorney general did win the endorsement of the state Democratic Party over the weekend. World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, who took credit for finding the misstatements, won GOP backing. Both the Democratic and Republican primaries are in August.

Kaine said he thought Blumenthal had occasionally gotten away from himself in the moment of speech-making but had corrected the record. He said veterans had not been misled into thinking he had served in Vietnam with them, and voters will "weigh this in the grand scheme of things" and find his record is reliable.

But Steele said Blumenthal holding a press conference to clarify his remarks won't stop people from questioning his credibility.

"You can't say, well, you know, on the one instance, I lied to you, but on the other, since I made up for it by explaining why I lied to you. It doesn't make sense to the American people," he said.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, added that Blumenthal damaged his reputation as trustworthy not only by misrepresenting his record but by then trying to patch up the situation.

"The only worse thing, I think, is then coming on and saying, 'Oh, I misspoke,' after you've been caught red-handed," Cornyn said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "It's as if he shot himself in one foot, then reloaded and shot himself in the other."