What at first appeared to be a potentially career-ending New York Times exposé of Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has generated a messy fight between the newspaper, Blumenthal’s liberal supporters, and his leading Republican rival for the Senate over the story’s accuracy and origins.

And, as the Times’ ombudsman tries to sort through a series of conflicting claims and grievances against the backdrop of this weekend’s state party conventions, none of the combatants appears to be backing down.

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Defenders of Blumenthal and some liberal media critics accused the Times of running an incomplete, misleading and even error-ridden story that said Blumenthal has repeatedly and falsely implied that he served in Vietnam, when in fact he served stateside in the Marine Corps Reserve after receiving five military deferments. 

These critics said the paper left out nuance and exculpatory evidence in an effort to produce an explosive blockbuster and have described the story as an opposition research hit piece driven by Linda McMahon, Blumenthal’s leading GOP rival in the race for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Chris Dodd.

McMahon’s campaign is proudly defending its role in providing the Times with the opposition research that was the basis for the most compelling piece of evidence in its story. And her team is pushing back against efforts to both minimize its involvement by the Times and suggestions by political analysts that the campaign erred in taking credit for the piece.

A McMahon campaign source boasted to POLITICO that if McMahon finishes this weekend’s convention ahead of her chief rival for the GOP nomination, former Rep. Rob Simmons, “a big part of the reason will have been our strategic decision to put our fingerprints on this story – a story that we were involved with.”

Meanwhile, the Times reporters and editors behind the story have stood by it and seem to be doubling down, publishing a follow-up Friday afternoon detailing a 2007 speech unearthed by the weekly Milford (Conn.) Mirror in which Blumenthal appeared to suggest he served in Vietnam. And Times executive editor Bill Keller asserted in a Thursday response to the paper’s ombudsman, public editor Clark Hoyt, that the firestorm generated by the first story proves its significance.

“The leading candidate for the United States Senate seat from Connecticut embellished his military record, and admitted it,” Keller wrote in an email to Hoyt’s office. “That seems to me a pretty important piece of information — and everyone, including the Blumenthal campaign, has certainly been reacting to it as such,” read Keller’s email, which was provided by the Times to POLITICO.

Hoyt is expected to publish a column Sunday detailing the findings of his investigation, for which he has reached out to the Blumenthal and McMahon campaigns, as well as Jean Risley, the chairwoman of Connecticut Vietnams Memorial, Inc. and a Blumenthal ally who alleged the Times misquoted her saying that Blumenthal had claimed to have served in Vietnam.