Say Anything Blog

Perhaps someday the Democrats will find a veteran who supports them and whom they can support who is not a fraud (or an thief), but I wouldn’t recommend holding your breath wating for it…

A Deception, and a Reluctance to Ask Questions
By DAN FROSCH and JAMES DAO
The Tired Gray Crone of New York

DENVER — The thick-muscled man with close-cropped hair who called himself Rick Duncan seemed right out of central casting as a prop for a Democratic candidate running against Bush administration policies last fall.

A former Marine Corps captain who suffered brain trauma from a roadside bomb in Iraq and was at the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 attacks. An advocate for veterans rights who opposed the war. An Annapolis graduate who was proudly gay. With his gold-plated credentials, he commanded the respect and attention of not just politicians, but also police chiefs, reporters and veterans advocates for the better part of two years.

Yet, except for his first name, virtually none of his story was true. In reality, he was Richard G. Strandlof, a charismatic drifter with a history of mental illness and petty crimes who had moved from Montana to Nevada to Colorado, assuming different names and identities along the way.

Last month, after actual veterans uncovered his deceptions, Mr. Strandlof, 32, was detained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and then arrested by the Denver police on an outstanding warrant for driving with a suspended license. The veterans group he helped create, the Colorado Veterans Alliance, has disbanded. And now Mr. Strandlof, apparently penniless, remains in jail on $1,000 bail.

Where, one must wonder, was the fourth estate during the actual election?

Hat Tip: Glenn Instapundit Reynolds (which article includes the link to the Tired Gray Crone of New York which I will not provide).