The 'forgotten' Supreme Court decision and its impact on our politics

The Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C. 

Amid the current national debate over immigration policies, racial discrimination, LGBTQ rights, and executive power, the anniversary of an important legal and political dispute that has directly shaped that debate will pass quietly, its legacy all but forgotten.
In September 1958, sixty years ago next week, the United States Supreme Court finally earned its hard-fought reputation as a co-equal branch of the federal government, in a courtroom drama filled with urgency and uncertainty.
For perhaps the first time, the high court put muscle behind its mandate, asserting in unequivocal terms that its interpretation of the Constitution was the "supreme law of the land," and ordering immediate state compliance.
Thurgood Marshall, the prominent lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, had sized up his audience: nine older white men who were none too thrilled about revisiting their landmark precedent that was proving nearly impossible to fully enforce.
The crafty civil rights veteran turned the tables on the justices in a civil rights case debated and decided within hours, which spoke as much about public confidence in government as it did about a hot-button social issue.
Marshall was essentially arguing that officials in Little Rock, Ark. had to follow a federal court order to desegregate its schools. The 50-year-old's focus was not black students seeking equality, but about society's larger civic responsibilities.
"Education is not the teaching of three R's. Education is teaching of the overall citizenship, to learn, to live together with fellow citizens and above all, to learn to obey the law," he says in rarely heard audio of the two-day argument.

Thurgood Marshall was nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1967.  (AP1967)

"I'm not worried about the Negro children at this stage. I don't believe they're in this case as such," Marsall went on. "I worry about the white children in Little Rock who are told as young people that the way to get your rights is to violate the law and defy the lawful authorities. I'm worried about their future. I don't worry about the Negro kids' future. They've been struggling with democracy long enough. They know about it."
The audio was secretly recorded by the court, and only made available to the public decades later. (Marshall's words can be heard here, at the 27:50 mark of Part 2.)
Just a day after the argument, the high court unanimously ordered Arkansas' governor to continue admitting African-American students.
"No state legislator or executive or judicial officer can war against the Constitution without violating his undertaking to support it," wrote a unanimous bench in Cooper v. Aaron. Compliance with the principles of civil rights, as articulated by the federal courts, is "indispensable for the protection of the freedoms guaranteed by our fundamental charter for all of us. Our constitutional ideal of equal justice under law is thus made a living truth."
LITTLE ROCK'S LEGACY
The Court's ruling in Cooper v. Aaron came four years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, which found "separate but equal" public facilities unconstitutional. It was groundbreaking, but many civil rights activists believed little progress was made in its initial aftermath, a sentiment echoed today.
"What happened in 1954?" asked current Justice Stephen Breyer in a speech this past January. "Nothing happened. What happened in 1955? Nothing. What happened in 1956? Double nothing."
The Brown ruling simply declared school segregation policies violated the 14th Amendment, implicitly leaving it to the states and lower courts to sort out the consequences. A follow-up decision a year later mandated school integration "with all deliberate speed," with federal court oversight to ensure compliance, but no timetable.
Some states needed no federal encouragement, but others, particularly in the South, were deliberately slow to change, and many courts were reluctant at first to force compliance.
Little Rock's school board initially created a court-backed integration plan, but the state legislature and Gov. Orval Faubus passed new laws banning such efforts. Local sovereignty was at stake, they insisted.
The situation in Arkansas' capital gained national attention in September 1957, when the state's national guard prevented a group of black students from attending the largest high school in the city (the "Little Rock Nine").

Elizabeth Eckford, one of the 'Little Rock Nine' is pursued by white students.  (Getty Images)

The crisis escalated after federal courts again ordered Little Rock Central High School's doors to be open to all, and President Dwight Eisenhower sent in Army troops. Despite threats of violence, the black students entered and began taking classes. They were subjected to continuing taunts, threats, and physical violence.
Months later, the school board asked for a delay in implementing the ongoing integration plan, citing "chaos, bedlam, and turmoil." A federal district judge agreed to do so, but a federal appeals court reversed that decision.
It was then that the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in a pair of special argument sessions, ordering immediate integration, and reaffirming existing precedent that the rights of minority students could not be sacrificed in lieu of state concerns about "order and peace." But the united justices went further, asserting clear authority to bind states to their decisions, which could not be circumvented with competing legislation.
Faubus was furious, closing the capital city's public schools, and ordering a special election within days to boost his actions.
"The Supreme Court shut its eyes to all the facts, and in essence said— integration at any price," he declared, "even if it means the destruction of our school system, our educational processes, and the risk of disorder and violence that could result in the loss of life—perhaps yours."
The open defiance continued, token desegregation continued slowly in many parts of the South and Southwest, and the impact is still being felt in many communities.
The citizens of Little Rock called 1958 the "lost year" in Little Rock, but the Supreme Court's newfound recognition of its own inherent power in its decisions would carry on. Some scholars have since called that bench the "living voice of the Constitution."
From the 1960s onward, a host of state laws on abortion, criminal procedure, and civil rights were debated and overturned by the Supreme Court in a series of cases known as single words: Gideon, Miranda, Loving, Roe, and Obergefell.
POLITICAL BACKLASH
But the Cooper vs. Aaron decision also created a legal and political backlash, especially among some conservatives.
Edwin Meese, a former Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, has been among those who have repeatedly criticized the Supreme Court for what they consider a self-affirming power grab.
"Constitutional interpretation is not the business of the court only, but also, and properly, the business of all branches of government," Meese has written.
The former AG has pinpointed the Cooper decision as the start of an era of an "imperial judiciary."
''Obviously the decision was binding on the parties in the case; but the implication that everyone would have to accept its judgments uncritically, that it was a decision from which there could be no appeal, was astonishing.''
Meese also believes that by saying its interpretation of the Constitution was "the supreme law of the land," that view ''was, and is, at war with the Constitution, at war with the basic principles of democratic government, and at war with the very meaning of the rule of law.''
Supporters of a more limited role for the nine unelected justices have cited Abraham Lincoln's remarks in his 1861 inaugural address.
"If the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court," he said, "the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal."
Lincoln had his own problems with the Supreme Court, ignoring its ruling the President had no authority to suspend habeas corpus, even in wartime. The justices did not bother to hold Lincoln accountable for his public defiance.
And yet, a Supreme Court confident of its mandate is a concept the public seems now to accept to a large extent. The justices themselves lack any formal enforcement tool except their own legitimacy contained in the power of words and ideas.
Breyer cites the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision that essentially handed the presidency to the Republican.
"What was remarkable about it is that even though vast numbers of Americans thought it was wrong," and even though Breyer himself thought it wrongly decided, "people followed it. In other places, there would have been guns and bullets. The fact that no blood was shed after Bush v. Gore, is what makes America great."

Big Mouth Obama Cartoons

Obama less combative in California speech

The tradition of all the past presidents, which dictates: Don't interfere with the peaceful transition of power, treat the new president with dignity and respect, and keep quiet.

Looking to rally support for several Democratic congressional candidates across California, former President Barack Obama took a more measured tone Saturday -- after a strongly worded speech the day before where he leveled blistering criticism of his successor and the GOP.
Obama said the November midterm elections would give Americans “a chance to restore sanity in our politics” during his 20-minute speech to a crowd of around 900 Democratic faithful at the Anaheim Convention Center, while warning voters of the risks of keeping Republicans in power.
“If we don’t step up, things can get worse,” Obama said. “We have a chance to flip the House of Representatives; to say ‘Enough is enough.’”
But California Republicans said Obama’s appearance would have little impact and may even help their party.
“I wish he would come more often because he reminds Republicans of eight years of misery,” said Republican National Committee member Shawn Steel, who lives in Orange County. “It reminds the Republicans why these midterms are important.”

“I wish [Obama] would come [to California] more often because he reminds Republicans of eight years of misery. It reminds the Republicans why these midterms are important.”

Some Democratic supporters would disagree.
Macy Bartlett, 17, a Democratic volunteer who registers other young voters in Los Angeles County, told the Orange County Register that Obama’s message will help her effort.
“We just say Obama’s name and it gets people interested,” Bartlett told the newspaper. “He’s such an icon for so many people, and he understands that flipping the House affects everyone.”
Obama led off his appearance with an anecdote about how he was once kicked out of Disneyland for smoking cigarettes on a ride during his days at Occidental College.
"After [a Kool & the Gang] concert, because we were teenagers, you could still kind of hang out in the park, and so we went into the gondolas, and I'm ashamed to say this — so close your ears, young people — but a few of us were smoking on the gondolas," Obama said of his time at Occidental, before he transferred to Columbia University for his junior year.
Saturday’s rally was Obama’s second campaign stop in a string of several planned appearances that Democrats hope will energize voters in an effort to flip 23 seats to take control of the House of Representatives.
He campaigned for seven California Democrats in competitive House district races. Four of those districts are in Orange County, the location of Saturday’s rally and a former GOP stronghold that Hillary Clinton carried by 9 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.
Statewide, Clinton beat Trump in California by more than 4 million votes.
Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Trump loyalist, is running for a 16^th term against a real estate investor Harley Rouda in his district, which encompasses parts of Orange County. Gil Cisneros, a Navy veteran and Democratic philanthropist, is vying to replace retiring Republican Rep. Ed Royce.
Obama also praised venture capitalist Josh Harder in his bid to unseat four-term Republican Jeff Denham, and T.J. Cox, who is challenging David Valadao in a district where Democrats hold a 17-point advantage in voter registration. Both districts are in the state’s Central Valley.
On Friday, the former president castigated President Trump and the Republican Party over its brand of politics at a public appearance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
But on Saturday, he said Democrats have a chance to woo independents and Republicans unhappy with the direction of the party.
Trump offered no direct rebuttal to Obama’s speech, but tweeted that Republicans were doing well leading up to the midterms.
“Republicans are doing really well with the Senate Midterms. Races that we were not even thinking about winning are now very close, or even leading. Election night will be very interesting indeed!”
Obama is no stranger appearances in California.
In June, he headlined an expensive fundraiser in Beverly Hills where he participated in a discussion with Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and attended and attended another Silicon Valley to raise money for candidates in hotly contested House races.
Obama is expected to deliver the same message in Cleveland on Thursday where he will campaign for Richard Cordray, the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor, and other Democrats.

Steve Hilton: Unmask the anti-Trump Deep State working against America’s best interests

Steve Hilton

The anonymous anti-Trump op-ed published by The New York Times on Wednesday confirmed what we all suspected. Members of the arrogant ruling class in Washington, furious that a populist interloper was elected by the people to dismantle the elitist policies that have hurt working Americans for decades, are fighting back.
Elitist commentators have mocked talk of the “Deep State” as feverish conspiracy-mongering. Well, now we know the Deep State exists. There really is a group of people embedded in the federal government actively working to block the policies that Americans voted for.
At the same time, anti-Trump commentators have lectured us for two years about how this president is “undermining democracy” and “subverting” those famous “democratic norms.” Well, now we know they are hypocritical idiots (intellectual idiots, of course – per Nassim Taleb’s wonderful formulation.)
I’m not sure what could undermine democracy more than a policy that was clearly articulated as part of a winning candidate’s platform being blocked by bureaucrats or political appointees who no one voted for. Isn’t it quite an important democratic “norm” that the policies of winning candidates and parties get implemented, rather than the policies of the losers?
Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of last week’s Washington elite meltdown was the hilarious spectacle of the left cheering on Goldman Sachs veteran Gary Cohn for his efforts to protect the profits of the super-rich from President Trump’s efforts to protect American workers.
Now the hunt is on to identify who wrote the op-ed published by The New York Times. But I fear that misses the point. Finding and even punishing this one individual is not going to solve the systemic and structural problem of the Deep State: the fact that we have permanent ruling class in our government that pushes forward an elitist policy agenda regardless of who actually wins elections.
I have a bigger and better plan, and it’s one of the ideas in my new book, “Positive Populism: Revolutionary Ideas to Rebuild Economic Security, Family, and Community in America.”
The first step in beating the Deep State is to unmask the Deep State. This idea goes back to my own experience battling the permanent bureaucracy as senior adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron in Britain.
Before Cameron was elected, I went to see former Prime Minister Tony Blair to ask his advice about how to be effective in government. One thing above all that I remember was his stark warning about the civil service.
Blair told me: “You cannot overestimate the degree to which the civil service and the bureaucracy genuinely see themselves as the guardians of the national interest. They think it’s their duty to block and frustrate the here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians who come in with their crazy schemes. That is how they think. You have to realize that they really are there trying to stop you doing what you want to do. You’ve got to understand that, and be ready to fight them.”
Blair’s warning about Britain’s Deep State was prophetic, as I discovered even before David Cameron took office as prime minister.
One of our key Conservative priorities was government transparency. We had pledged to publish details of everything the British government spent money on, as well as the names, job descriptions and the organizational charts of the entire civil service, so citizens could see what their government did.
In a meeting ahead of the election, Cabinet Secretary and the head of the civil service Gus O’Donnell asked me and David Cameron: “Of course you don’t really mean all this government transparency stuff, do you?”

When I replied that we very much did, O’Donnell gave me a knowing look and said: “Yes. Well, we’ll see about that.”
And indeed, once we were in office, the civil service bureaucracy fought tooth and nail against the publication of any information at all about its scope and functions.
And then it dawned on me: Blair was so right. The permanent bureaucracy, self-righteously convinced of its “noble” mission to protect the country from risk-taking, was never going to be an ally in the kind of radical change we were trying to make. The last thing they wanted was to decentralize power – that would mean less power for them!
I realized there was no way we were going to be able to truly decentralize power and make government more accountable unless we actually bit the bullet and cut back the size of the bureaucracy – drastically.
I had an idea: For centuries, the British Empire was run out of Somerset House, a magnificent, palatial complex on the Thames, not far from Trafalgar Square. Here were the offices of the empire’s civil servants.
In the colonial era when “the sun never set on the British Empire” because it spanned the globe, the offices ruled from Australia and New Zealand to Africa, India and the Middle East, and across the Atlantic to Canada. In addition to all those charges, Great Britain administered all of Ireland and Scotland as well.
“How many staff worked at Somerset House?” I inquired. The answer? Roughly 10,000. Well: if Britain could preside over the largest empire in world history from one building that housed 10,000 people, why couldn’t modern Britain – which now had no empire to administer?
Why was it necessary for Whitehall (the nickname of the core civil service in London) to be staffed by well over 100,000 people? Using Somerset House as a guideline, I proposed an experiment: to cut the central civil service bureaucracy by 90 percent for a year or two, and to see the impact. To me, it was the logical corollary of our plan to decentralize power. If we really meant that, we would need fewer bureaucrats at the center, surely.
As you can imagine, this plan did not go down well with either the political or bureaucratic establishment. The elites never want to give up power. But they must give up power – or have it taken away from them – if we are to make government truly accountable to the people.
The federal bureaucracy in Washington – the American Deep State – is sorely in need of just such a radical shake-up. In 2017, the U.S. government’s civilian workforce consisted of nearly 3 million taxpayer-funded jobs. Anyone who has been to Washington has seen in city block after city block the sprawling physical landscape of bureaucracy. But what exactly do they all do there?
Many must do important work. But let’s find out exactly what. Let's open them up to scrutiny and hold them to account. It's our tax dollars after all. Let’s start by bringing into the open the secret world of the Deep State bureaucrats. Publish every civil service organization chart, along with salaries and job descriptions.
Let’s Unmask the Deep State. That will provide the necessary intelligence for establishing the scale of the cut in its numbers that we need. In the process, let’s clear out all the leeches and hangers-on – the useless elite management consultants who earn a fortune from the taxpayer for writing endless PowerPoint presentations for incoming administrations that really do nothing but rearrange the deckchairs on this bureaucratic Titanic that is the federal government.
The result is a self-referential ruling class of mandarins stuck in acronyms, cost analysis reports, and legal jargon. Hardly the government “of, by, and for the people” that the Founding Fathers had in mind.
We’ll be discussing this topic on “The Next Revolution” at 9 p.m. EDT Sunday on Fox News Channel with Dana Perino, Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk and Tezlyn Figaro. Hope you can join us!

Anti-Trump journalists find new, bizarre ways to join the resistance

Media bias seems to get worse by the week. Even a work week shortened by Labor Day delivered on that depressing trend.
Journalists cheered protests at the Supreme Court nomination hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh and swallowed a silly Internet hoax. Then there was the anonymous New York Times op-ed defending a “steady state” rebellion against President Trump. It was a new low for journalists devoted to overturning a democratic election.
Call it the pièce de résistance.
The New York Times trumped opposition leaders at CNN and The Washington Post. The three battle daily for liberal attention and journalistic kudos like unhinged “Bachelorette” finalists, each desperate to win favor.
The op-ed let the Times celebrate victory for now. It easily passed the Post with its snoozy new Bob Woodward book and CNN’s celebration for taking down InfoWars chief Alex Jones.
The Times said publishing an anonymous op-ed is a “rare step.” So rare, no one in journalism remembered anyone else doing it to attack the president of the United States. But then, we’ve only had President Donald J. Trump for about 20 months.
The op-ed brought out more insanity. MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace fantasized about removing Trump and said it was time for “a serious debate about the 25th Amendment in this country.” Fellow host Ari Melber combined with his guests to call the administration a “dumpster fire” 11 times in one segment.
Things were just as bad over at CNN. “Wolf” host Wolf Blitzer kept asking if America was heading to a “constitutional crisis,” as if a Times op-ed equaled the rule of law.
CNN Senior Political Analyst John Avlon gave viewers a “reality check” of what a 25th Amendment removal might look like if CNN staffers got their wish to get rid of Trump. Avlon had to admit the chance that would happen were “slim, to say the least.”
CNN’s website actually ran “7 terms you need to know to understand the anonymous NYT op-ed.” It included everything what an op-ed is, for the utterly clueless, and more talk about the unlikely use of the 25th Amendment. That didn’t stop headlines calling for it all week.
Naturally, the broadcast networks had their fun with the op-ed. The three evening news shows spent a total of nearly 15 minutes on the op-ed that night, precisely the celebration the Times wanted. ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl called the piece “a devastating portrayal of Trump the president.” As if we haven’t had any of those since Trump took office.
“The View” praised the op-ed, with co-host Sunny Hostin saying of the author, “this person is probably saving our country.” Host Whoopi Goldberg had the audacity to claim the opinion piece was “constructive criticism.”
“CBS This Morning” fill-in co-host Bianna Golodryga was a rare voice of reason about the op-ed. She worried it would exacerbate America’s “erosion of trust” in journalism.
She’s right.
2. ‘No, I’m Spartacus’: If the op-ed provided the drama for the week, the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Supreme Court nomination of  Kavanaugh provided almost everything else – from comedy to farce.
Journalists loved how Democrats turned the hearing into a circus, complete with hundreds of arrests and women dressed in outfits straight out of Hulu’s pro-abortion dystopia “The Handmaid’s Tale.” There were breathless reports of “chaos” or “fireworks” but at least it was “dramatic” enough to keep journalists happy.
In reality, it was a “was all carefully choreographed,” reported ABC’s Terry Moran, as Senate Democrats and their most-unhinged allies created a scene they hope will aid them in the midterms, after Kavanaugh is already sitting on the Supreme Court.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo invented a new word when he whined that the hearing was a “traveshamockery,” because Kavanaugh wouldn’t answer questions that would then force him to recuse himself from future rulings.
This came after Cuomo accused the GOP of trying to “stack the courts across this country with white, male, young judges. For the record, Cuomo is also white and male – and at 48, he’s five years younger than Kavanaugh.
That wasn’t even the best part. The left flipped out over former Kavanaugh clerk Zina Bash, who they claimed flashed an “OK” sign during the hearing. (Hint: She didn’t.) “The gesture was declared a white-power symbol and ‘a national outrage’ by a #resistance tweeter who has 200,000 followers,” wrote Politico and coverage of the left’s “Self-Own” went downhill from there.
According to The Washington Post: “Liberal activist and author Amy Siskind, in a now-deleted tweet, wrote that Bash’s hand symbol should ‘disqualify’ Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court.” It was too much for CNN’s “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter, who called out those involved for their “‘white power symbol’ nonsense.”
Bash got the last laugh, appearing to genuinely use the symbol during the next day’s hearing in a championship level act of trolling.
New Jersey Democrat Sen. Cory Booker delivered more farcical comments as he laughably claimed “I am Spartacus” for releasing Kavanaugh emails that he claimed could get him kicked out of the Senate. Only the emails had already been cleared for release. Once more, reporters ran with the fake news to promote the likely presidential candidate.
3. Obama’s Back: There is no one the media adore more than President Obama. It was love at first sight. Obama gave a speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004 that got him the nomination four years later. The New York Times still calls it “The Speech That Made Obama” and NBC said it was “electrifying.”
Now Obama has returned and journalists have visions of a rainbow-hued Camelot once more dancing in their heads. He spoke in Illinois Friday criticizing Trump and said “the politics of resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party." The media have been pretending that is true for years, so they loved it.
CNN depicted the battle as “Obama and Trump fight for America's soul.” CNN host and former Obama green jobs czar Van Jones loved it and explained how “democracy is at risk.” Fellow host Brooke Baldwin called the speech “incredible.”
And Politico was giddy, claiming in a headline: “Obama vs. Trump: The clash everyone's waited for arrives.” By “everyone,” what Politico meant was “journalists.” Conservatives never wanted to see Obama again.
Then there was NBC News, which ran a headline on its website about Obama bashing Trump: “Obama slams 'crazy stuff' coming out of Trump's White House.”
Then NBC used a bizarre pair of headlines on stories about the president: “Fear and loathing on the Trump campaign trail” and “Analysis: President Donald Trump appears to be trying to scare up a midterms win. Literally.” The “analysis” (Journalism code for opinion) claimed: “President Donald Trump's weapon of choice is fear.”
It’s not Trump’s weapon of choice. It’s the news media’s.

North Korea marks 70th anniversary with somewhat muted military parade

Tanks roll past during a parade for the 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding day in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sept. 9, 2018.  (Associated Press)

Without long-range missiles

 North Korea showcased its latest weaponry and best goose-stepping soldiers Sunday as the reclusive nation marked its 70^th anniversary with a military parade at a time when it is under international pressure to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans waved colored plastic bouquets in Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square and held them up to spell out words and slogans as tanks and artillery rolled by.

No long-range missiles were on display, with the parade instead focusing on economic development. North Korea traditionally uses holidays to showcase its military arsenal and new technology.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, raises hands with China's third-highest ranking official, Li Zhanshu, during a parade for the 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding day in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sept. 9, 2018.  (Associated Press)

The procession also celebrated civilian groups such as nurses, students and construction workers in an effort to emphasize the country’s economy.
The focus on the military and civilian sectors was not new to celebrations of North Korea’s founding.
In 2008 and 2013, the Korean People’s Army was not featured, only the civil defense units, officially called “Worker Peasant Red Guards.”
Kim Yong Nam, head of North Korea's parliament, set the relatively softer tone for the event with an opening speech that emphasized the economic goals of the regime, not its nuclear might. He called on the military to be ready to work to help build the economy.
Guests at the parade included the head of the Chinese parliament and high-level delegations from countries that have friendly ties with the North. North Korean leader Kim Jung-Un attended but did not address the crowd.
Afterward, he met with Chinese special envoy, Li Zhanshu, who is also the third-ranking member in China's ruling Communist Party. The two held up their joined hands to symbolize the countries' traditionally close ties, though the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping could indicate Beijing still has some reservations about Kim's initiatives.
North Korea holds military parades almost every year and held one just before the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February.
This year’s parade wasn’t televised but the state media apparatus filmed it – even using drones with cameras.
Earlier in the day, North Korea media reported Kim visited the mausoleum where his grandfather, the country’s founder, and his father lie in state, Reuters reported.

Soldiers march past during a parade for the 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding day in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sept. 9, 2018.  (Associated Press)

The parade comes at a sensitive time in the region.
Washington wants North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program while Kim wants security concessions and a formal agreement ending the Korean War.
Kim will meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in the coming weeks to discuss a path toward denuclearization.
This year’s celebration also marks a return of North Korea’s Mass Games, which involve tens of thousands of people dancing in unison in a display of national unity.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal Vietnam Cartoons

Richard Blumenthal’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ From History (He Lied)

By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ MAY 17, 2010

At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life.

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate( he won), never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

The deferments allowed Mr. Blumenthal to complete his studies at Harvard; pursue a graduate fellowship in England; serve as a special assistant to The Washington Post’s publisher, Katharine Graham; and ultimately take a job in the Nixon White House.

In 1970, with his last deferment in jeopardy, he landed a coveted spot in the Marine Reserve, which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. He joined a unit in Washington that conducted drills and other exercises and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a Toys for Tots drive.

Many politicians have faced questions over their decisions during the Vietnam War, and Mr. Blumenthal, who is seeking the seat being vacated by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, is not alone in staying out of the war.

But what is striking about Mr. Blumenthal’s record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, and the misleading way he often speaks about that period of his life now, especially when he is speaking at veterans’ ceremonies or other patriotic events.

Sometimes his remarks have been plainly untrue, as in his speech to the group in Norwalk. At other times, he has used more ambiguous language, but the impression left on audiences can be similar.

In an interview on Monday, the attorney general said that he had misspoken about his service during the Norwalk event and might have misspoken on other occasions. “My intention has always been to be completely clear and accurate and straightforward, out of respect to the veterans who served in Vietnam,” he said.

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AN ASSISTANT IN THE NIXON WHITE HOUSE In 1969, Richard Blumenthal was hired by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, presidential urban affairs adviser. Credit John Olson/Time & Life Pictures — Getty Images

But an examination of his remarks at the ceremonies shows that he does not volunteer that his service never took him overseas. And he describes the hostile reaction directed at veterans coming back from Vietnam, intimating that he was among them.

In 2003, he addressed a rally in Bridgeport, where about 100 military families gathered to express support for American troops overseas. “When we returned, we saw nothing like this,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Let us do better by this generation of men and women.”

At a 2008 ceremony in front of the Veterans War Memorial Building in Shelton, he praised the audience for paying tribute to troops fighting abroad, noting that America had not always done so.

“I served during the Vietnam era,” he said. “I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse.”

Mr. Blumenthal, 64, is known as a brilliant lawyer who likes to argue cases in court and uses language with power and precision. He is also savvy about the news media and attentive to how he is portrayed in the press.

But the way he speaks about his military service has led to confusion and frequent mischaracterizations of his biography in his home state newspapers. In at least eight newspaper articles published in Connecticut from 2003 to 2009, he is described as having served in Vietnam.

The New Haven Register on July 20, 2006, described him as “a veteran of the Vietnam War,” and on April 6, 2007, said that the attorney general had “served in the Marines in Vietnam.” On May 26, 2009, The Connecticut Post, a Bridgeport newspaper that is the state’s third-largest daily, described Mr. Blumenthal as “a Vietnam veteran.” The Shelton Weekly reported on May 23, 2008, that Mr. Blumenthal “was met with applause when he spoke about his experience as a Marine sergeant in Vietnam.”

And the idea that he served in Vietnam has become such an accepted part of his public biography that when a national outlet, Slate magazine, produced a profile of Mr. Blumenthal in 2000, it said he had “enlisted in the Marines rather than duck the Vietnam draft.”

It does not appear that Mr. Blumenthal ever sought to correct those mistakes.

In the interview, he said he was not certain whether he had seen the stories or whether any steps had been taken to point out the inaccuracies.

“I don’t know if we tried to do so or not,” he said. He added that he “can’t possibly know what is reported in all” the articles that are written about him, given the large number of appearances he makes at military-style events.

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An official log of Mr. Blumenthal's Selective Service record. He received a series of educational and occupational deferments from 1965 to 1970.

He said he had tried to stick to a consistent way of describing his military experience: that he served as a member of the United State Marine Corps Reserve during the Vietnam era.

Asked about the Bridgeport rally, when he told the crowd, “When we returned, we saw nothing like this,” Mr. Blumenthal said he did not recall the event.

An aide pointed out that in a different appearance this year, Mr. Blumenthal was forthright about not having gone to war. In a Senate debate in March, he responded to a question about Iran and the use of military force by saying, “Although I did not serve in Vietnam, I have seen firsthand the effects of military action, and no one wants it to be the first resort, nor do we want to mortgage the country’s future with a deficit that is ballooning out of control.”

On a less serious matter, another flattering but untrue description of Mr. Blumenthal’s history has appeared in profiles about him. In two largely favorable profiles, the Slate article and a magazine article in The Hartford Courant in 2004 with which he cooperated, Mr. Blumenthal is described prominently as having served as captain of the swim team at Harvard. Records at the college show that he was never on the team.

Mr. Blumenthal said he did not provide the information to reporters, was unsure how it got into circulation and was “astonished” when he saw it in print.

Mr. Blumenthal has made veterans’ issues a centerpiece of his public life and his Senate campaign, but even those who have worked closely with him have gotten the misimpression that he served in Vietnam.

In an interview, Jean Risley, the chairwoman of the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial Inc., recalled listening to an emotional Mr. Blumenthal offering remarks at the dedication of the memorial. She remembered him describing the indignities that he and other veterans faced when they returned from Vietnam.

“It was a sad moment,” she recalled. “He said, ‘When we came back, we were spat on; we couldn’t wear our uniforms.’ It looked like he was sad to me when he said it.”

Ms. Risley later telephoned the reporter to say she had checked into Mr. Blumenthal’s military background and learned that he had not, in fact, served in Vietnam.

The Vietnam chapter in Mr. Blumenthal’s biography has received little attention despite his nearly three decades in Connecticut politics.

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A CANDIDATE FOR THE SENATE Mr. Blumenthal at an April forum in Monroe. He is running for the seat Christopher J. Dodd is vacating. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

But now, after repeatedly shunning opportunities for higher office, Mr. Blumenthal is the man Democrats nationally are depending on to retain the seat they controlled for 30 years under Mr. Dodd, and he is likely to face more intense scrutiny.

After obtaining Mr. Blumenthal’s Selective Service records through a Freedom of Information Act request, The New York Times asked David Curry, a professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and an expert on the Vietnam draft, to examine them.

Mr. Curry said the records showed that Mr. Blumenthal had received at least five deferments. Mr. Blumenthal did not dispute that but said he did not know how many deferments he had received.

Mr. Blumenthal grew up in New York City, the son of a successful businessman who ran an import-export company.

As a young man, he attended Riverdale Country School in the Bronx and showed great promise, along with an ability to ingratiate himself with powerful people.

In 1963, he entered Harvard College, where he met Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who served on the faculty there and guided Mr. Blumenthal’s senior thesis on the failure of government poverty programs.

He received two student deferments during his undergraduate years there, the records show.

After graduating from Harvard in 1967, military records show, Mr. Blumenthal obtained another educational deferment and headed to Britain, where he filed stories for The Washington Post and attended Trinity College, Cambridge, on a graduate fellowship.

But in early 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson, under pressure over criticism that wealthier young men were avoiding the draft through graduate school, abolished nearly all graduate deferments and sharply increased the number of troops sent to Southeast Asia.

That summer, Mr. Blumenthal’s draft classification changed from 2-S, an educational deferment, to 2-A, an occupational deferment — a rare exemption from military service for men who contended that it was in the “national health, safety and interest” for them to remain in their civilian jobs. At the time, he was working as a special assistant to Ms. Graham, whose son Donald he had befriended at Harvard. Half a year later, after the election of President Richard M. Nixon, Mr. Blumenthal went to work in the White House as a senior staff assistant to Mr. Moynihan, who was Nixon’s urban affairs adviser.

But at the end of that year, he became eligible for induction after he drew a low number in a draft lottery held on Dec. 1, 1969. His number was 152, and people with numbers as high as 195 could be drafted, according to the Selective Service.

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He served in the Marine Reserve.

Two months after the lottery, in February 1970, Mr. Blumenthal obtained a second occupational deferment, according to the records. The status of people with occupational deferments, however, was growing shakier, with the war raging and the Nixon administration increasingly uncomfortable with them.

In April 1970, Mr. Blumenthal secured a spot in the Marine Corps Reserve, which was regarded as a safe harbor for those who did not want to go to war.

“The Reserves were not being activated for Vietnam and were seen as a shelter for young privileged men,” Mr. Curry said.

But Mr. Blumenthal’s campaign manager, Mindy Myers, said Monday that any suggestion that he was ducking the war was unfounded, saying he was engaged in important work. When he worked for Ms. Graham, for example, he helped teach children in a public school in the Anacostia section of Washington, for a project she had started there.

“It’s flat wrong to imply that Richard Blumenthal’s decisions to take a Fiske Fellowship, teach inner-city schoolchildren and work in the White House for Daniel Patrick Moynihan were decisions to avoid service when in fact, while still eligible for a deferment, he chose to enlist in the Marine Corps Reserves and completed six months of service at Parris Island, S.C., and then six years of service in the Reserves.”

Mr. Blumenthal landed in the Fourth Civil Affairs Group in Washington, whose members included the well-connected in Washington. At the time, the unit was not associated with the kind of hardship of traditional fighting units, according to Marine reports from the period and interviews with about a half-dozen men who served in the unit during the Vietnam years.

In the 1970s, the unit’s members were dispatched to undertake projects like refurbishing tent decks and showers at a campground for underprivileged Washington children, as well as collecting and distributing toys and games as part of regular Toys for Tots drives.

Robert Cole, a retired lieutenant colonel who did active duty overseas in the 1950s and later joined the unit as a reservist, recalled the young men who joined the unit in the late 1960s and early 1970s. “These kids we were getting in — a lot of them were worried about the draft,” he said.

After entering Yale Law School in the fall of 1970, Mr. Blumenthal transferred to a Marine Reserve unit in New Haven, Company C of the Sixth Motor Transport Battalion, Fourth Marine Division, which conducted occasional military drills, as well as participating in Christmas toy drives for children and recycling programs in neighboring communities, according to the unit’s command reports from the time.

In 1974, Mr. Blumenthal took a position as a law clerk for Justice Harry C. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court and transferred back to a Washington unit, where he completed his service.