An update on Christine O'Donnell's self-aggrandizing dishonesty

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Updating my post from yesterday.)

As TPM's Christina Bellantoni is reporting, a PR firm has released a statement from O'Donnell denying that she lied in her LinkedIn bio:

There have been reports that I have released false information on a LinkedIn profile under my name. This is categorically untrue. I never established a LinkedIn profile, or authorized anyone to do so on my behalf.

That may or may not be true. LinkedIn has removed O'Donnell's profile but stated that taking it down was not "an acknowledgment that the profile was fake." In other words, it may very well not have been fake. O'Donnell may still be lying.

The statement continues:

I have always been clear about my educational background. I completed undergraduate work at Fairleigh Dickenson University. After my undergraduate work, I completed a summer program run by the Phoenix Institute, at the Institute's Oxford University location. The Institute runs programs around the world at various universities, and participants study issues of human dignity. I also completed a Lincoln Fellowship at the Claremont Institute in Claremont, CA. We would encourage LinkedIn to remove this profile. 

Let's take a look at this:

1) O'Donnell did in fact graduate from FDU, but she only receive her BA last year. She had claimed that she had graduated for several years prior to that.

2) O'Donnell was in fact enrolled in a summer seminar program run by the Phoenix Institute. The Institute rented space at Oxford, but it is rather misleading to suggest that it has an "Oxford University location." And her LinkedIn bio stated that she studied at the "University of Oxford." It did not mention the Phoenix Institute.

3) O'Donnell was in fact enrolled in a fellowship program at the Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank. Her LinkedIn bio, however, stated that she studied at "Claremont Graduate University," a fairly prestigious graduate school with which the Claremont Institute is not affiliated.

4) She does not mention it in her statement, but in a 2005 lawsuit O'Donnell claimed that she was trying to "take master's degree classes at Princeton." In actual fact, she never took a graduate course at Princeton.

Assuming that she posted (or authorized to be posted) that LinkedIn profile, that's four strikes against her just regarding her educational background. Even if she didn't, though, she still lied about FDU and Princeton and has been misleading about Phoenix/Oxford.

As The Weekly Standard has reported -- yes, The Weekly Standard, hardly a left-wing rag -- there have been other prominent lies as well:

1) "Conservative radio host Dan Gaffney challenged O'Donnell on September 2 for claiming she had won two out of three counties in Delaware when she ran for Senate in 2008. In fact, she didn't win any."

2) "According to her financial disclosure form, O'Donnell only made $5,800 last year. 'I made more than $5,800,' O'Donnell told me [John McCormack] in the September 2 interview, but said she did not have to and would not disclose how much."

3) "As the Delaware News Journal notes, O'Donnell 'has denied that she was ever sued by her mortgage company or that a foreclosure sale date had been set.'" But in fact she was, in 2008.

4) "Even more disturbing, says Gaffney, is O'Donnell's claim in her recent WEEKLY STANDARD interview that her home and campaign office were broken into and vandalized and burglarized in 2008. O'Donnell did not report the alleged burglary and vandalism to the police, but suggested that [GOP rival Mike] Castle supporters may have been the ones who committed the alleged crime. 'If that's true and she didn't call the police, she's not only endangering herself but her neighbors,' says Gaffney. 'She also likes to say there are people hiding in her bushes. It doesn't sound stable when you add it all up.'"

No, it doesn't. Not at all. And yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, O'Donnell is playing the victim card. Citing Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin as inspirations, she has said that "whenever a strong pioneering woman comes onto the scene there's some backlash."

No, this isn't about her sex, it's about her as an individual. And even conservatives like the ones who run the Standard realize she's crazy: "O'Donnell's finances, honesty, and stability have been called into question in light of her false and strange claims." 

And yet here she is, the Republican nominee for Senate in Delaware, perhaps the ideal candidate for an increasingly extremist party that has lost its mind.