A lot of us wish we had better resumes. Tea Party movement idol and GOP Senate candidate in Delaware Christine O’Donnell has been proactive about it: her resume lists two schools she didn’t attend. Gary Scott:
Greg Sargent at the Washington Post’s Plum Line has a story today that says Christine O’Donnell, Republican Senate candidate in Delaware, embellished her online resume to say she’d studied at Oxford University, when she’d actually taken a course from an outfit called the Phoenix Institute in a space rented from Oxford.
The same resume lists O’Donnell as having attended Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. The claim seemed suspicious since O’Donnell had yet to receive her undergraduate degree, from Farleigh Dickinson University, until last summer. So I asked CGU’s public relations officer, Rod Leveque, if the school had any record of O’Donnell attending classes there. His response:
In short, no. Claremont Graduate University has no student or education record for an individual named Christine O’Donnell.
In 2002, O’Donnell was listed as a “Lincoln Fellow” at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank also based in Claremont. However, the institute is not affiliated with the Claremont Graduate University or any of the other Claremont Colleges. One of the Claremont Institute’s fellows, Harry Jaffa, did teach at the Claremont Graduate University back when it was known as Claremont Graduate School.
Of course the issue here is about honesty and transparency, but since when did this matter in 21st century American mega-partisan politics?
Will Sean, and Rush and Glenn cover this story and demand an explanation as they would if it had been someone with a “D” in front of their party label? (Will a furry Easter Bunny hide eggs in your house this April?)
Or will they and others circle the partisan wagons and/or play defense attorney, PR representative or will they spin it? (Will the sun shine some day this week?)
Will O’Donnell refudiate the entries?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.