His mea culpa, broadcast live on national television, was hastily arranged by Mr. Blumenthal’s campaign and national Democratic aides in an effort to put out a political fire that some party officials had worried could imperil his candidacy.  “On a few occasions I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that and I take full responsibility,” Mr. Blumenthal said at a packed news conference at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in West Hartford. “But I will not allow anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of service to our country.”  Mr. Blumenthal, 64, said he had been unaware of what he called “those misplaced words” when he delivered them. He said that the errors were “totally unintentional” and that he had made them only a few times in hundreds of public appearances.  “Unlike many of my peers,” Mr. Blumenthal said, “I chose to join the military and serve my country. I am proud of my service in the United States Marine Corps Reserve.”  The news conference was a response to an article in The New York Times, published on the newspaper’s Web site on Monday night, that reported how Mr. Blumenthal had avoided being sent to Vietnam, and yet in a speech in 2008 had said flatly, “We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam.”  The article also described how he had left the impression that he had been among veterans who returned from Vietnam to discover that attitudes toward the war had changed. In 2008, for example, he told an audience in Shelton, Conn., “I served during the Vietnam era,” adding, “I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse.”  Leading Connecticut Democrats, who will gather for their state convention on Friday, expressed confidence that Mr. Blumenthal’s popularity and strength in the polls would survive the controversy.  “If no other big shoes drop, I think Dick has a real reservoir of goodwill and trust with Connecticut voters,” said George Jepsen, a former chairman of the state Democratic Party who is running to succeed Mr. Blumenthal as attorney general. “Time obviously will tell. But Democrats and unaffiliated voters really view him as a person who’s honest and sincere.”  Mr. Blumenthal told reporters that he settled on the Marine Corps Reserve in 1970 not by pulling strings but by consulting the Washington telephone book. “No special help, no special privileges,” he said, adding that his recruiter did not know that he was then working for the Nixon White House.  Unlike other Reserves, Mr. Blumenthal said, the Marine Corps Reserve had no waiting list, and he was told he could be quickly put on a bus to basic training at Parris Island, S.C.  With aging military veterans flanking him and shouting “Semper Fi!,” the Marine Corps motto, and other words of encouragement, Mr. Blumenthal refused, however, to accept responsibility for mischaracterizations of his biography that have appeared in newspapers and elsewhere.  “I am responsible for my own statements and for any of my misplaced words any time that I misspeak,” he said. “I can’t be held responsible for all the mistakes in all the articles, thousands of them, that are written about me.”  Democrats spent the day sizing up the possible damage to Mr. Blumenthal’s campaign to keep the seat, which Senator Christopher J. Dodd is giving up, from falling into Republican hands.  His lone Democratic opponent, Merrick Alpert, a businessman, attended the news conference and criticized the attorney general as soon as Mr. Blumenthal began making his way to a waiting car. He noted that Mr. Blumenthal had not apologized. “He’s not sorry that he did it, he’s only sorry that he got caught,” Mr. Alpert said.  Republicans said the controversy would most directly benefit Rob Simmons, a former congressman from Stonington whose Web site says he served in Vietnam for 19 months and was awarded two Bronze Stars.  “Too many have sacrificed too much to have their valor stolen in this way,” Mr. Simmons said on Tuesday.  The Republican Party’s state convention is also on Friday, and Mr. Simmons is in a fight for delegates with Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling impresario, who has said she will spend as much as $50 million to win the seat.  Ms. McMahon’s campaign sought to claim credit for aspects of The Times’s article, apparently in a bid to impress Republican delegates that her resources would give her the greatest chance of defeating Mr. Blumenthal, who had seemed invincible.  Mr. Blumenthal’s aides, meanwhile, said the article was an “outrageous distortion” of his record. They also posted a short video on YouTube and on his campaign’s Facebook page under the heading “Richard Blumenthal Has Been Consistent, Honest and Clear About His Military Service Record.”  The video is a 26-second snippet from a March 1 debate with Mr. Alpert, in which Mr. Blumenthal mentioned his time in the military. He said that he had been “in the Reserves” and added, “Although I did not serve in Vietnam, I have seen firsthand the effects of military action.”  Some Democrats more or less shrugged off Mr. Blumenthal’s statements about his record.  Derek Slap, a veteran Democratic aide in Hartford, compared Mr. Blumenthal’s statements with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s false claim in 2008 that she had landed in Bosnia “under sniper fire” in 1996, when she was the first lady.  “It dominated a few news cycles, and then it went away,” Mr. Slap said. “It wasn’t the end of Hillary Clinton.”  Still, although Mr. Blumenthal explained his statements about his military record in the company of sympathetic veterans, other former service members said they did not accept his rationale.  Mr. Blumenthal’s past characterization of his war experience “diminishes the service of all who served and sacrificed, most especially those whose names are inscribed on the Vietnam Wall,” said Richard DiFederico, the commander of the Connecticut Department of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “Mr. Blumenthal was considered one of the best friends a veteran could have in Connecticut. It is a true shame that he let a false claim of Vietnam service change that.”  David M. Halbfinger reported from Hartford, and James Barron from New York.
Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a Democrat running for Senate, said he took âfull responsibilityâ for saying he had served.