Hill Busted For Puffing Resume

Former Rep. Baron Hill's (D) self-written biography on his website claimed he had been drafted to play football for the New York Giants and held the state high school track record for the 100 yard dash. Neither claim is true--a fact now acknowledged by the Hill campaign. These were facts that Lesley Stedman Weidenbener printed in her glowing feature on Hill's effort to unseat Rep. Mike Sodrel (R) this past Thursday in the Louisville Courier-Journal without questioning. As the Redstate blog is now reporting, the newspaper is now backtracking and has issued this retraction:

Correction

Baron Hill’s athletic accomplishments
A story Thursday said incorrectly that Democratic congressional candidate Baron Hill set and still held Indiana record for the 100-yard dash and that he had been drafted by the New York Giants football team when he graduated from college.

Hill’s campaign biography said he set the dash record while at Seymour High School and continued to hold it. But the Indiana High School Athletic Association lists someone else as the record holder for running a time of 9.5 seconds during the state finals of the 1965-66 school year. According to Seymour High School, Hill ran a 100-yard dash in 9.5 seconds at a 1970 track meet. But because it was not part of the state finals, the IHSAA does not count it as tying the record. The Hill campaign yesterday removed the reference from its Web site. Also, Hill is not listed on the Giant’s official draft list. Through a spokeswoman, Hill said he remembers being contacted by the Giants organization and believed he’d been drafted because friends said they’d read about it. But he said he never followed up with the team.

The news of this fabrication of his record could not come at a worse time for Hill. A new poll taken in the last few days shows that Sodrel has retaken the lead in the closing days of the campaign after trailing Hill for months. The SurveyUSA poll shows Sodrel leading Hill 46%-44% in Indiana's 9th District race.