If the Bush administration ever treated terrorism suspects the way Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal treats law-abiding citizens and small businesses, even conservatives would have blanched.

This activist, interventionist Democrat – like his identical, slightly less oily twin, Eliot Spitzer – decided at age 5 he was going to be a U.S. senator and then the first Jewish president. And he doesn’t care how many lives he has to destroy to get there.

Currently, Blumenthal is running for the U.S. Senate against Linda McMahon in Connecticut. He must be stopped.

Even his ideological ally, The New York Times, thinks he must be stopped. That paper ran a front-page expose on Blumenthal’s lies about having served in Vietnam, violating a century-old Times tradition of never printing information unflattering to a Democrat.

Blumenthal apologized for lying about being in Vietnam, saying, “I take full responsibility.” Who else was he considering blaming? The voices in his head?

Among Blumenthal’s taxpayer-funded citizen-persecution projects was the one he waged against Gina Kolb, owner of Computer Plus Center in East Hartford.

After selling $17.2 million worth of computers and servers to the state in 2001, Kolb found herself being sued by Blumenthal for $1.75 million for allegedly overcharging the state $500,000.

Publicity-whore Blumenthal sent out an accusatory press release about Kolb, saying: “No supplier should be permitted to shortchange or overcharge the state without severe consequences.”

Soon thereafter, Kolb was arrested at her home on seven first-degree larceny charges, courtesy of Connecticut’s crazily hyperactive attorney general.

Wonder why you have a $4 billion deficit, Nutmeggers? Blumenthal’s endless investigations into responsible, law-abiding citizens like Kolb have now cost more than the entire Iraq War. (And that’s just the cost of the paper for Blumenthal’s 12 billion press releases!)

A court dismissed all charges against Kolb and her company in 2008. But not before this female businesswoman had her company completely shattered by the pathologically ambitious attorney general.

I’m sorry, I know you need to be on television every single day, Dick, but that’s not enough of a reason to destroy innocent citizens’ lives, much less use taxpayer money to do so.

Kolb was far from the only innocent citizen persecuted by Blumenthal. The reason we know her story is that, instead of moving as far away from Connecticut as she could, Kolb turned around and sued the state for violating her constitutional rights.

The jury agreed, awarding her $18 million for Blumenthal’s “pattern of conduct” that destroyed Kolb’s business and impugned her integrity.

Noticeably, the attorney general who spends most of his waking hours phoning reporters, holding press conferences and issuing press releases did not make a peep about Kolb’s total vindication in court, despite his having earlier blackened her name. Perhaps he was busy attending a fake Vietnam veterans’ reunion that day.

To the contrary, Blumenthal continued using the power of his office to persecute Kolb. This is the problem with government officials using taxpayer money to further their own political ambitions: No one could tell him to cut his losses and stop harassing Kolb.

Blumenthal filed a blizzard of motions – at taxpayer expense – appealing the jury’s verdict in favor of Kolb. One of them finally succeeded in getting a judge to reduce the damages to Kolb, who presumably is now living in Hawaii under an assumed name so Blumenthal doesn’t start making crank calls to her.

(She should go to Vietnam! Blumenthal will never find her there!)

Connecticut taxpayers spent millions of dollars harassing this innocent businesswoman, successfully destroying a profitable, job-creating computer company in the state and one law-abiding taxpayer in the process. Thanks, Dick!

Blumenthal’s 24-hour publicity office managed to produce a gleaming press release on the reduction of Kolb’s damages award, in which he vowed to “continue fighting to overturn this verdict.”

Asked by Charles Kochakian of the New Haven Register about the case and whether Blumenthal ever released a statement when a victim of his legal harassment was vindicated, Blumenthal essentially said: No one is ever vindicated. Just because no wrongdoing was found, he said, doesn’t mean wrongdoing didn’t occur.

Welcome to Connecticut, where you’re guilty until proved innocent (and you can never be proved innocent).

Most shockingly, Blumenthal said he would never issue a press release about one of his publicly accused targets being vindicated because “new evidence may well emerge.”

“New evidence may well emerge” that Dick Blumenthal is a child molesting ax murderer. But until it does, no one has a right to say so. Hello? ACLU? Heard of Dick Blumenthal?

Everyone in Connecticut knows Blumenthal’s name, largely on account of his daily press conferences for nearly two decades as attorney general, announcing lawsuits to combat every minor inconvenience. Arby’s served jalapeno poppers at 114 degrees? Blumenthal is holding a press conference at noon!

This hyperactive, publicity-mad lunatic is constantly announcing new lawsuits far beyond the purview of his office, like some New England version of Hugo Chavez. This won him the title: “Worst Attorney General in the Country” from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

He’s sued power companies for contributing to “global warming,” asking the courts to impose cap and trade – a bill so absurd neither Obama nor the Democratic Senate will touch it.

He’s sued gun companies, trying to hold them responsible for criminal acts by third parties involving guns.

He’s sued tobacco companies so he could extort millions of dollars for his old law firm and other legal cronies overseeing the shakedown – I mean “settlement.”

Blumenthal is now in a tight race with Linda McMahon for the U.S. Senate. I understand why Connecticut would like to get rid of him, but that’s no reason to foist this menace on the rest of the country. How about sending him to Vietnam?

COPYRIGHT 2010 ANN COULTER
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