October 29
...serving up your daily dish.
Bloomfield mayor Raymond McCarthy and councilman Bernard Hamilton, both running for reelection, actually don't have the college degrees that they claimed on their election fliers.
McCarthy said that until this week he believed he had a bachelor's degree in psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University."From 1969 through 1974 I attended Fairleigh Dickinson University and worked my way through school," McCarthy said. "At the end of the summer of 1974 I had taken the required 128 credits and paid for 128 credits. It is now at the point where Fairleigh Dickinson says I only have 122 credits registered."
Hamilton told the Star-Ledger that he mistakenly claimed to have "completed" studies at Brooklyn College, and meant to say he "attended."
The discrepancies emerged shortly before a League of Women Voters-sponsored debate on Wednesday.
October 29, 2004 in Controversy | Permalink
That's....not good. I wish groups would work so hard at investigating political leaders at times NOT right before elections, though.
Posted by: Tom | Oct 29, 2004 1:21:38 PM
I once stopped for directions in New Haven at Yale University. It's been years now and they still haven't sent me my diploma. Should I take Yale off my resume?
Posted by: The Proprietor | Oct 29, 2004 6:49:47 PM
Darn...I just HATE when that happens! I pay good money for a diploma and the darned school refuses to give me one...OR I thought I had the proper amount of credits but 25 years later find out I don't...OR those nasty partisan groups who investigate this sort of stuff right before elections...OR I was dumb enough to put something like that on my resume hoping/praying/assuming no one would bother to check....
Posted by: SirGadfly | Oct 29, 2004 8:28:40 PM
From everything I've heard, he was given a pretty long opportunity to respond (and even though I never attended commencement, I got my diploma in the mail, and ordered copies of my transcripts to keep on file. . .why not him?) and didn't. This was not some GOP plot, it was an example of someone providing information that when investigated was found to be untrue. Anyone else out there debating in front of League of Women Voters would have gotten snagged on this one, too - and he was not the only one who was.
Posted by: Alison Meyer | Oct 30, 2004 10:29:55 PM
