The 1st Thread For 5/20/10: Apologies Need To Be Given To Blumenthal, PRONTO

Photo from The New York Times, the place that should apologize the most to Richard Blumenthal

After assessing over the situation from a variety of perspectives , it is without a shadow of a doubt time for Richard Blumenthal to be delivered a heap of penitence from a wide variety of people, including myself.

Most importantly however (because the campaign of the World Wrestling Entertainment group won't even dare bother to do so), the apologies to this man and the fierce blacklash that he has faced from this highly sensitive issue should come first from Raymond Hernandez, spokesperson Diane McNulty , and the rest of the New York Times .

Just from a young fledgling journalist's perspective, seeing the New York Times have another embarrassing moment highlights how much of an utter hell hole journalism has become in America (and continues to diminish by the second), and how mind-numbingly depressing it can get witnessing it.

But with how long they took to show any remorse for James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart scribing their ACORN story for them, I don't expect any forthcoming pronouncements of "We messed up, we apologize to Attorney General Blumenthal" from the folks at the Grey Lady.

That shouldn't exonerate them however, and it certainly shouldn't exonerate the Tweety one either.

The last few days, Chris Matthews has been on this utterly bizarre "Blumenthal has shamed veterans" crusade that he even idiotically had on the potential opponent for the Connecticut AG in the general election this fall. How he and his producers thought it would make more sense to have Rob Simmons on the air yesterday instead of actually doing the reporting the AP and Greg Sargent did to follow the story speaks to how sad this situation is for "news reporting" in America.

Of course, with how he gets on his blowhard nature, I don't expect the Tweety one to immediately do a 180 and say "I eat my words, I'm sorry Mr. Blumenthal" either. And that further exacerbates the problem of what used to be called journalism in this country, the ability to hold one's self accountable for one's own mistakes.

Even Ed Schultz (and I love Ed Schultz) hasn't given Blumenthal a second look here. And though he has nowhere acted to the ridiculous level of the Times, or the guy that comes on right before him on MSNBC, he too (along with the great Bill Press as well) jumped on Blumenthal without giving the needed retraction that the situation calls for now. I mean, both him and Press listened to and agreed with Ron Christe of all nutcases, for goodness gracious sake!

All that I can say is this: Richard Blumenthal, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for all the half jokes that I made on Tweeter, and thinking facetiously of how Ned Lamont needed to replace you on the ballot. I'm just sorry at my profession basically making your life probably a living hell the last few days.

I just hope that the Tweety one, or Eddie, or Mr. Press give some apology to Richard Blumenthal. Because it sure as hell won't be coming from the New York Times anytime soon.

Unless they have a rare, and needed, humbling moment of maturity.