With disgraces rolling off the public-policy conveyor like poison Hershey Kisses, bitter pills these days have become commonplace and generic; yet, once in awhile, one bobs to the surface (like the shark in Jaws) to highlight how far we've gone off the rails. 

An update on Dick Blumenthal (D-CN) provides proof.  This moron, running for Senate - as a Dem, go figure - was the "man," you'll recall, who addressed veterans groups by declaring himself a Marine, implying combat experience, and pretending, humbly, to have endured Vietnam.   

It turns out, though, that the closest he got to Southeast Asia was a take-out order of rice in D.C.  Blumenthal lied, time and again (excuse me, "wasn't clear"), while generating the impression among media (no less than eight articles attested to him being a veteran of the war) and the public that, as a man of honor, he served his nation. 

"We have learned something important since the days I served in Vietnam," he told a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens.  "And you exemplify it.  Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it - Afghanistan or Iraq - we owe our military unconditional support."

"When we returned," he told a group of families honoring veterans, "we saw nothing like this.  Let us do better by this generation of men and women.  I served during the Vietnam era, and I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even the physical abuse."

What honor.  Coming from a broom-pusher who pulled strings to serve stateside, what a disqualifier, too.  Anyone with a soul would run and hide, for nothing - and I mean nothing - is less forgivable in the public sphere than receiving credit for false service and using it for political gain.  According to the (hold your nose) New York Times, Blumenthal, from 1965 to ‘70, received FIVE military deferments before landing a spot as a reserve Marine.  There, he bravely conducted drills (in New Haven), focused on "projects," and organized toy drives-though it must be said that some of the toys may have been weapons!

The question, of course, is why, having been outed, is this putz still around?  How does it end, does it, and to what corner of purgatory does he slither and cry? 

Well, if the latest Quinnipiac poll is any indication, the answer is, it ends well, and he doesn't cry but celebrates coming victory.  Character, it appears, is of less import to Connecticuns than the willingness to pander, because Dick leads Linda McMahon, a GOP punch-line, by SEVENTEEN POINTS.

As disgraces rate, I can think of few larger (the Ground Zero mosque?), but the underlying issue precedes the candidate.  The real insult lies with the People, the "useful idiots," willing to blindly vote, regardless of character, for the prize Party Stooge.  This isn't about party, it's about principle.

And America has lost that.  Between government schools, a leftist media, and the attack on morality, America has not only "gone off the rails," it has swapped virtue for vice.  A moral people does not embrace scoundrels.  Blumenthal personifies "scoundrel," a soulless cretin willing to lie for votes, who when caught in a lie, breezily sidesteps. 

One would hope this wouldn't stand, not in a Republic, but we're really no longer a nation of laws.  In the public sphere, vice is rewarded, welcome, and it's nothing to lie about serving your country.  Country is subject, foremost, to rule.  And what really matters is serving yourself. 

 
Greg Halvorson is the founder of Soldiers Without Boots, and hosts Freedom Warrior Radio on Blog Talk Radio.