Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Mark Kirk's History Of Lies

After criticism sprung up over Mark Kirk's claim that he was Navy Intelligence Officer of the Year in the nineties, investigators discovered that the candidate had made numerous misleading statements regarding his service that would make Richard Blumenthal blush.

Politico pointed out that the he stated in the past that his role in the military puts him in "command the war room in the Pentagon."

Terry Welch of Nitpicker indicated that Kirk claimed to have served in Iraq despite the fact that he was never deployed to serve overseas.  Welch had gone on in his article to actually define what deployment really entails, and Kirk didn't fit the bill.  Welch had wrote in an earlier post about Kirk's lies, pointing to some of his other statements:
Kirk has suggested he merely "serve(d) alongside our troops" like any other Reserve officer, but told a group of reporters during a press conference this about his mission in Afghanistan.
"I came up with a number of recommendations that I gave to Gen. McChrystal," said Kirk, referring to the commander of military forces in Afghanistan. "We have a tremendous amount of combat power."
I find it odd that Gen. Stanley McChrystal--the four star general who had been in charge of the Afghanistan mission for six months by the time Kirk arrived for his second tour, would need the advice of an O-5 who'd been in the country for three weeks. So, what, exactly, did Kirk do in the country? Was he working as a Representative--which would explain his discussion with the general--or as a Navy commander, which wouldn't?
Both Welch and The Huffington Post indicated that while corrections were made, Kirk failed to apologize for his embellishments, and instead focused on placing the blame of his lies on his Democratic opponent.
While his previous slip-ups have been virtually unreported by the mainstream media, some are wondering how much his third strike will hurt his campaign. Meanwhile, he continues to slam Giannoulias. Following the Washington Post story, Kirk's campaign sent out an email to supporters calling Giannoulias "Desperate" for tipping the Post off to the military embellishment story. His failure to take full responsibility does not bode well, either.
So... will we see any mention of this from the conservative controlled media that supposedly loves America and the military, or will they allow these lies to float out there because of their political bias?  Will Kirk continue to misstate his military career?

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