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Darcy Burner (Challenger, WA-08) caught lying about educational qualifications.

This is the funny bit: "Kaushik said Burner claimed to have a degree in economics at the debates because saying she had an emphasis within her computer science degree 'doesn't exactly flow off the tongue.'"

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  October 23rd, 2008 at 08:09 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Translation: “What? People were paying attention?”

Even the Seattle Times can’t spin this past an “exaggeration” by Dave Reichert’s challenger:

In recent weeks, Democratic congressional candidate Darcy Burner has touted her Harvard degree in economics when talking about the nation’s financial crisis and her opposition to the bailout package passed by Congress.

At two debates this month, she brought up her academic background in her opening statement.

“I loved economics so much that I got a degree in it from Harvard,” she said at an Oct. 10 debate at KCTS-TV. “Now everywhere I go in this district, the only thing people want to talk to me about is the economy.”

But while she took courses in economics, Burner doesn’t have a degree in the subject from Harvard.

The article also notes that Darcy Burner also repeated the lie on her website, and that she has a history of “inflating her résumé” (note that I am paraphrasing, or more accurately, correcting for spin). This race is tight, and Left-leaning polls show it currently in the liar’s favor: needless to say, the Democrats want the seat fairly badly. If you’ve got it to spare, Dave Reichert’s donation page is here.

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COMMENTS

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  • Tbone

    That put’s her one up on another Harvard Degree holder running for office.

  • mcfail

    Is being nit picked a litttttle much.

    “What I have is a degree in computer science with a special field in economics”(

    Seems reasonable… no?

  • Moe_Lane

    …in my (state) undergraduate school. Heck, by Burner’s standards I triple-majored in English Literature, History, and Political Science – and have a Masters in Library Studies.

    Sorry, man, but she lied about her degree.

  • blogan

    5 classes is almost nothing. The first few are going to be basics that many people would have learned in high school. The next ones are intermediate. Think of it this way, her “degree” in economics has probably less economic classes than a 2-year degree would.

  • paulag1955

    Pants on fire, Darcy.

    There’s a good discussion on this topic at Sound Politics plus a video clip where you can hear the lie. Plus you can hear what a self-important, puffed up, condescending piece of work she is.

  • ScottWP

    That’s it. Equivocation on this point by Dems is unseemly (although predictable).

    Imagine what she’ll do in office.

  • paulag1955

    I forgot to mention what a disappointment it is to me that I don’t live in the 8th District so I can’t vote against her. Not that I wouldn’t vote for Dave Reichert anyway – I would – but it would give me such a sense of satisfaction to mark my ballot against her.

  • hunter

    No more.
    The democrats get away with stealing FNMA into collapse. They get away with using ACORN to flood the polls with cartoon characters. They are running the Congress into the lowest approval ratings ever in history.
    They are enabling or covering up for massive democrat fraud- Charlie Rangel, Feinstein, Reid, Jefferson, Frank, Dodd, Gorelick, Franklin Raines, that putz paying off his mistress in Florida, stealing the election in Washington state, and on and on and on.
    Gratuitously lying about a degree?
    A straw too many.

  • sorrodos

    I just graduated with a CS degree in 2005.

    At the university I attended, the CS department offers a degree with a “business focus”. A student taking this path would only need to take 5 additional courses for an econ minor.

    All this being said, the confusion here is really caused by the fact that Harvard allows students to earn a joint degree by writing a thesis in their field of concentration (there are no “major” or “minors” at Harvard) that they join to another field of study.

  • Alberta

    nice

  • sorrodos

    http://www.redstate.com/diaries/redstate/2008/oct/23/darcy-burner-challenger-wa-08-caught-lying-about-e/#c64951

    My fellow CS students that took the “business path” for their study would have only had to take 5 courses for an econ minor at my university.

  • NightTwister

    I’m getting one in Communication. I’ve already taken the 4, and am taking one more as an elective.

  • pwest

    Democrat, as Mark Twain would suggest that’s redundant reporting!

  • Badill_T

    The way things were at my nationally ranked (state) school 12 hours (4 classes) were required to minor. I actually met the requirements, but engineers are forbidden to minor (we would have too many minors to count if they allowed it; I would have had minors in biology, chemistry, spanish, and math, if they’d have let us).

    With chemistry, the major progression went:

    3 hours intro (if you tested out of the 3 hours of kiddie stuff) + lab
    6 hours organic + lab
    6 hours physical + lab
    6 hours biochem
    4 hours analytic + lab

    A significant fraction of those who attempt never get past 3 classes of chemistry including the joke intro course, it gets difficult very quickly. Organic was the weed-out course for would-be doctors. That said, I can’t imagine economics being that hard :P

    It’s crunch time, hit her hard over this if it has traction.

  • Moe_Lane

    Even her own people aren’t trying to pretend that she has a joint degree in Comp Sci / Economics.

    If you have direct evidence to the contrary – a scan of her diploma will do – provide it. Otherwise, don’t waste my time defending a liar.

    Seriously.

  • sorrodos

    I obviously do not have a scan of her diploma, but to suggest that such is necessary to defend her is pretty ludicrous.

    Seriously.

    She probably did exaggerate something, but its not an exaggeration that most people here in Western Washington are going to care two cents about.

    If this nitpicking is really the best dirt you can find on her, you will probably be seeing her serve my neighbors across Lake Washington in Eastern King County come January.

    This is an issue that is very easily explained to those who learn about it. People have bigger things to worry about than a politician claiming they had a degree in one field when it was really only a joint degree (from Harvard nonetheless).

  • NoHomeless

    Do all 14 of your regular members live at and share the computer at the Y?

    Remember kids …

    It’s fun to stay at the YMCA

    It’s fun to stay at the YMCA

    Foley’s there Sen Craig is too

    You can find another lover while tying your shoe

    It’s fun to stay at the YMCA

  • bs

    Are you home sick from school today, sonny? Better go back and watch SpongeBob and eat your Frosted Flakes.

  • David_Hinz

    he would get a failing grade on screen name alone

  • Moe_Lane

    Thanks!

    Blam.

  • bs
  • hunter

    Juthht wridiculoush!

  • Tim_Schieferecke

    what makes you think she’ll tell the truth about anything else? There’s enough liars is Washington D.C. without knowingly adding another blatant one.

  • Moe_Lane

    Thanks, but I think we’ll just muddle on without you in the future.

    But you can come back any time: just email us credible evidence that Darcy didn’t lie about having a degree in economics. No, I don’t know how you can do it, either. Maybe she could go back to school?

    Blam.

  • hunter

    Juthht wridiculoush!

  • hunter

    Juthht wridiculoush!

  • Soulsamurai

    We’re all human and no one is exempt from the charge of lying. There are dishonest people in all parties.

    The DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE LEFT AND THE RIGHT HOWEVER, is that the left does not value telling the truth. The truth is of little importance to them. In fact, the TRUTH often gets in the way of what they want to accomplish, so expediency trumps truth-telling as habitual value for those on the left.

    Burner opposed the bailout because it’s politically expedient for her. But she’s a Democrat – how many of her fellow Democrats actually helped create the economic mess we’re in?!? Democratic economic policies will in fact further undermine and destabilize the economy. Is she challenging her party leader’s economic sense and policies, or only her Republican opponent’s?

  • olsmithie

    Frank or dinosaur?

    Actually the purple Barney has better grammar than the other one…

    Regards

  • olsmithie

    to vote for a candidate who touted a degree in economics from Harvard.

    (Look at present day Wasington.)

    Regards

  • justnowawake

    Either she officially has a joint degree, or she doesn’t. By the time I declared a major when I was in college, I had enough credits in history, philosophy, and economics to declare a major in any one of them. I declared my major to be economics and completed the requirements to earn a degree. My degree is in economics. I don’t try to bs people by telling them I have a minor or joint degree in either of the other two subjects. That wasn’t how it worked at my college, and to make that claim would be deceptive.

    Face it, Darcy was being deliberately deceptive. She didn’t mispeak and I doubt that she was confused about the issue.

    I used to live in Reichert’s district. Democracy for America spent a bundle and sent droves of volunteers to support Burner in the last election and failed. Reichert is very popular in the area. Please contribute to Dave. He’s a great guy and is a great representative to the people of his district.

  • JakePrime

    Whether Darcy had a minor or not she still misled her constituents. Haven’t we had enough lying already?

    Personaly, I have much more respect for an undergraduate degree in comp sci than economics or political science, which everyone and his mom has anyway. It seems stupid to lie about something like that.

  • Patricia_C

    Maybe Darcy figures… If stretching the truth about your academic credentials worked for Joe Biden… Heck, it will work for her TOO!

    (eye roll)

  • furious

    …well, uh, actually, in a book I read, um, was planning to read about Business School…”

    Five courses would have to include the four required for any elective (Intro, Micro, Macro, and Money&Banking)
    plus one elective.

    Nothing about Math, Statistics, or advanced Electives.

    I find The Left’s infatuation with credentialism, imaginary or otherwise, naive and rather touching.

  • kweiss01

    We know what those genius Harvard economists did for the Russian economy after the USSR disolved. They were so caught up in models of the “perfect” world that they refused to acknowledge Russia (or any real world economy) is far from perfect. In short, their advice was put Russia on a disasterous course.

    The one good thing Putin did (later) to stimulate the Russian economy was to lower taxes and simplify the tax code.

  • bobojake

    obama lied at the 3rd debate on his relationship with AYERS, Why should it matter what Darcy says. I think its part of the liberal party.

  • bunnyfufu

    Let’s be honest here, folks. My undergrad institution, your undergrad institution, and Harvard don’t work the same way. If you read the comments, you find PHB’s comment which is articulate as to why E Heffter’s reporting is shoddy…

    It is unfortunate that Ms Heffer made this claim while apparently ignorant of the Harvard degree system.

    Harvard University is rather older than most US universities and its degree system is somewhat different. At the time Burner attended the Harvard system allowed a candidate to effectively obtain a double major by effectively passing the criteria for both courses and writing a thesis on both topics. This is not particularly unusual as there is a great deal of overlap in the requirements for many courses.

    Such a candidate receives a degree issued by one of the departments concerned. This is not particularly unusual either. I have a doctorate in Computer Science from the Department of Nuclear Physics at Oxford. What matters to the university is not so much what the candidate studied as what they achieved. Like the Oxford system the Harvard system was originally developed for the purpose of informing a congregation as to the capabilities of a potential pastor. It is evidently not designed to inform practitioners of gotcha ‘journalism’ determined to make a scandal out of an imagined distinction where none exists.

    It is most regrettable that the Seattle Times would publish such a story without first checking the facts carefully and competently.

    It would be even more unfortunate however if it was unable to admit its error, particularly since the reporter in question apparently has a past record of sloppy reporting.

    Darcy Burner has bad ideas, lies like any politician, but in terms of having an “economics degree from Harvard,” for all intents and purposes, she does.

    Instead, how about going after her and the MSM for talking about abortion. Congressmen don’t have a say in topics like that so the only reason to bring it up in a debate is to alienate women in their district.

  • speciallist

    pic later

  • speciallist

    lol

  • mobius2702

    Wasn’t it around 6 months ago when Hillary decided she “wasn’t going to put her lot in with economists?”

    Now it’s all cool, we can go around touting our econ credentials?

    Erm, ok….

    Did Hillary get the recent memo?

  • GreenAces

    …she is not the only one with, um, credentials issues

    So spins the merry go round.

  • russkiejedi

    …has no constituents, and as a resident of the 8th district, I’ve cast my vote to keep it that way.

    I majored in Finance at school, but minored in Russian Studies. I actually had to take about 30 hours worth of classes to finish my minor. While I consider myself well-informed about Russian history, culture, there’s no way I would confuse my major with with my minor.

    It’s not just this, this is part an parcel of her whole persona.

  • jesdynf

    That the Right places such value on the truth. As the election unfolds, do consider what might have happened if more Republicans had stood up for the right of the American people to learn truths, and taken the Right’s elected leaders to task for every dodged subpoena and every perjured statement.

    Repudiating Bush, back when it mattered, would have meant throwing away /one/ election, and the Republicans would be running against Clinton in 2012. In two weeks, we’ll start to learn how the other strategy plays out.

  • jesdynf

    Spoken by the man who wrote the degree requirements. He doesn’t feel her statement is inaccurate.

    http://openleft.com/showComment.do?commentId=119754

  • KCTS9

    You can watch the full KCTS 9 Reichert-Burner debate online at KCTS.org.

    Darcy Burner’s comment about receiving an Economics degree is at 4:28 on the first video.

    http://www.kcts9.org/video/reichert-burner-debate-part-1-4

    http://www.kcts9.org/video/reichert-burner-debate-part-2-4

    http://www.kcts9.org/video/reichert-burner-debate-part-3-4

    http://www.kcts9.org/video/reichert-burner-debate-part-4-4