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Thursday, October 23, 2008

Re: Drama in the Burner-Reichert Race

posted by on October 23 at 12:10 PM

Two can play at this game. The latest from the campaign of Darcy Burner:

The campaign of 8th District Democratic congressional candidate Darcy Burner today discovered the Republican incumbent Congressman Dave Reichert is falsely claiming on the official biographical directory of the United States Congress to hold a four year B.A. degree. The claim to hold a four year degree is made here.

This claim is untrue. Reichert holds only a two-year A.A. degree from the college in question.

“Congressman Reichert and his Republican allies, with the assistance of credulous reporting from the Seattle Times, has been trying to discredit Darcy Burner with a technical gotcha about how she has characterized her degree from Harvard, which, as she has repeatedly stated — and has now been confirmed by a Harvard Dean — is a B.A. in computer science with a special field in economics,” said Burner campaign spokesman Sandeep Kaushik. “Meanwhile, Congressman Reichert has misrepresented himself in his official congressional biographical directory as having a four-year degree that he apparently does not have. And that false claim has been posted for years, and has spread onto a host of other web listings, without Reichert ever correcting the record.”

Kaushik added, “Congressman Reichert owes the an immediate public apology for his false claim, and should correct the official biographical record today. And he owes Darcy Burner an apology as well for yesterday’s mudslinging.”

Now here’s a fair question: Will the Seattle Times, if it can confirm the Burner camp’s claim, do a story about Reichert’s B.A./A.A. discrepancy and give the story equal play to today’s piece on Burner’s undergraduate education?

(More examples of Reichert being identified as having a B.A. here, here, here, here, and here.)

RSS icon Comments

1

This is way more clear-cut than the Burner issue. Saying you have a B.A. when you only have an A.A. could get you fired from most companies.

Posted by Julie in Chicago | October 23, 2008 12:16 PM
2

True. But Burner still screwed the pooch here. She knew what she was doing.

I still side with her, but... She's a smart girl, and she knew what she was doing.

Moral indignation is somewhat wasted here.

Posted by Matthew | October 23, 2008 12:18 PM
3

If so many places say he has a B.A., what information substantiates that it's just an A.A.? Do they have an official transcript or something? This sounds so "I know you are, but what am I?" I'm pro-Burner (voted for her in 2004!), but that was a pretty spiteful press release.

Posted by Aislinn | October 23, 2008 12:28 PM
4

Ha! I just clicked on the link embedded in the blockquote and it now says that he holds an A.A. from Concordia Lutheran College. But, through the magic of some new technology called Google, I pulled up the cached version and it says he has B.A. from Concordia Lutheran College. Awesome.

Posted by Julie in Chicago | October 23, 2008 12:40 PM
5

So the answer to @3 is in his official congressional biography. Har. Reichert is a piece of shit.

Posted by Fnarf | October 23, 2008 1:04 PM
7

What if he got an AA and then got an honorary BA from PLU or BYU?

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 23, 2008 1:58 PM
8

it's already been changed on half of those websites (in "More examples of Reichert being identified as having a B.A. here, here, here, here, and here.")

quick! someone cover up the lies!! before more people see what a crook he is!

one thing to consider, though (just to play devil's advocate, according to CNN Money (here: http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/22/pf/resume_lies/index.htm), education is the most common thing lied about on resumes (which it estimates roughly 30% of resumes contain lies)

Posted by luna.sea | October 23, 2008 2:14 PM
9

Going through the links at the end of your post Eli, the first three actually say that Reichert has an A.A, and not a B.A as you claim (and the last two state). I'm not sure what exaclty you're trying to prove here, but in any case, Reichert's qualifications seem to be slightly more in doubt than Burner's, given that no one from Concordia Lutheran College seems to have verified them (as opposed to several Harvard officials and students attesting to Burner's degree).

Posted by Matt G. | October 23, 2008 9:59 PM

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