Today’s Republican-American captured Dick Blumenthal in his essence, coming a week after a court awarded a small business over $18 million at the expense of taxpayers. The suit against the state of Connecticut alleged that Blumenthal’s accusation that in 1993 the company sold faulty computers to the Department of Information Technology was unfair and drove her business under. The charge by Blumenthal was Computer Plus Center sold 44 computers without proper components. Gina Malapanis was charged with larceny by state prosecutors based on Blumenthal’s finding. The charges were later dropped and Malapanis fought back.

Now 17 years later, Connecticut is on the hook for $18 million. Nice work, Dick.

The Republican American put it all together nicely.

One Connecticut columnist tossed out a note of caution. “Among the little discussed reasons Blumenthal may not wish to leave his job is this: He may not be able to leave it without exposing his entire record in office to his successor and to the public,” wrote Don Pesci of Vernon in November. “All those e-mails left behind, and some of the grosser errors he has made in his prosecutions, may testify against him if he should run for higher office.”

Well, leading Democrats barely had finished shoveling dirt on the corpse of Sen. Dodd’s political career Jan. 6 before Mr. Blumenthal announced his desire to replace him, shocking even Sen. Dodd’s harshest critics with his lack of grace. And sure enough, three weeks later, the first skeleton emerged from his closet.

In Waterbury Superior Court on Jan. 29, a jury awarded Gina Malapanis, owner of Computers Plus Center Inc., $18.3 million in a countersuit she had filed against the state. In 2003, Mr. Blumenthal sued her company, which had supplied computers to state government since 1993, claiming it had sold the state 44 computers that did not have the specified components. Ms. Malapanis was arrested in June 2004 on charges of first-degree larceny for allegedly bilking the state of more than $300,000. The state later dropped the charges.

Bottom line: Mr. Blumenthal wielded the blunt instrument of his office against an entrepreneur, destroying her business and even trying to get her thrown in jail, on accusations a jury found were so unfounded, she deserved compensation 61 times the amount she was accused of stealing.

Former congressman Rob Simmons, a Republican seeking Sen. Dodd’s seat, said the case “serves as a window into (Mr. Blumenthal’s) sue first, ask questions later mentality that has helped create one of the least competitive climates for business and cost our state jobs.”

For the record, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, who aspires to Mr. Blumenthal’s job, reported last month 13,414 businesses filed paperwork to dissolve last year while the number of business starts was down 6 percent from 2008. One can blame the banking industry, George W. Bush, Wall Street, General Motors or Ben Bernanke, but none of those culprits set out to kill a Connecticut computer company, put all of its employees out of work and imprison its owner.

And no one should entertain the least hope that other businesses, from small, startup electronics outfits to Pratt & Whitney, are unaware a job-destroying, anti-business atmosphere pervades Connecticut, or that it wears the face of Dick Blumenthal.