2010-06-04
Holding Both Sides Accountable: Blumenthal and Kirk
I have to say that I can't even begin to express my disappointment here. I actually really liked Mark Kirk and thought he would have made one of the greatest Illinois Senators in the state's history. But now, the truth is out and it turns out that Kirk is the latest politician to lie about his military service. I can't begin to tell you how frustrating this is. Congressman Mark Kirk served in the Naval Reserves as a commissioned officer in the intelligence field. He provided top notch service for his country, and he should have been proud of that.
But instead, Mark Kirk lied about his military career to say that he served in the Gulf War, was shot at while on a reconnaissance flight, and he received military honors that he didn't actually receive.
Like Blumenthal, a Democrat who is running for US Senate in Connecticut and who lied about serving in Vietnam (and got mocked by Joe Biden for it), Mark Kirk served honorably and did his job incredibly well. I just don't understand what is possessing people to say they did things that they never did.
What's shocking to me is that Kirk has been the Republican Congressman in an increasingly hostile Congressional district for a while now. How the heck did Democrats drop the ball on this when they were campaigning against him before? If I were running against a candidate who said he served in a war zone and received honors, I'd make sure I checked that out. Not that I would assume he is lying, but you're supposed to fact check things like that.
What's worse is that in his apology, Kirk blamed the Department of Defense for essentially writing reports in "Pentagonese" and he refused to answer the question of whether or not he was trying to embellish his service with these "misstatements."
Excuse me for being skeptical of my fellow Republican here, but serving in the Gulf War and being shot at are not things you "misstate" because you don't know how to read Pentagon paperwork.
Personally, as a Republican and a Veteran, I would have been much less disappointed in Kirk if he just had a sex scandal instead. The only bright side of all of this is that Democrats are capable of being just as shamefully guilty of scamming voters about their military service.
