In Connecticut, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was the candidate the Democratic Party wants to replace Christopher Dodd as U.S. Senator. (There will be a contested primary in August.)
New York Times (Raymond Hernandez) (h/t Talking Points Memo) quotes Blumenthal misstating his personal history.
“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008.
While Blumenthal served in the military during the Vietnam War era, he did not leave the United States.
Sometimes his remarks have been plainly untrue, as in his speech to the group in Norwalk. At other times, he has used more ambiguous language, but the impression left on audiences can be similar.
There's an Illinois politicians who sure hopes "ambiguous language" that leaves a misleading impression isn't disqualifying for the U.S. Senate in the eyes of the media.
From U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk's official website.
The U.S. Navy named Kirk “Intelligence Officer of the Year” in 1999 for his combat service in Kosovo.
I suspect Kirk's claim contains multiple aspects that are misleading and one that is false.
1. Kirk did not get the award because he served in a combat zone. There were plenty of intelligence officers who were in the Yugoslavia theater longer than Kirk and who did more than Kirk. I'm not sure why Kirk got the award. I suspect it has something to do with him being on Congressional staff. But I do know, he did not get the award for "combat service".
2. Try doing a Google search for "Intelligence Officer of the Year" and "U.S. Navy". If this was a real award, shouldn't it come up on some official Navy website with lists of other winners and other nominees? I think Kirk was awarded "Intelligence Officer of the Year" for reservists who were junior officers. It may even be a smaller subset of officers, for example those in the Yugoslavia mission. Kirk wants people to think he was evaluated the best in the entire Navy. Only it ain't true.
3. There was an article during the GOP primary, State Journal Register, IIRC, that explained that Kirk never served on the ground in Yugoslavia and it sounded like he took just one flight that entered the edge of the combat zone so he could make misleading claims about his service later.
So, in one sentence Kirk is misleading or dishonest on three different points. And the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times never has called him on it. It took the State Journal-Register to get to the truth.
UPDATES: This story is developing. Please take a look at the following posts for updates:
11 comments:
The media could clarify what Kirk's award is all about by asking him to produce it.
I'm 99+% certain of a couple things.
1. He was not the "Intelligence officer of the year" for the entire Navy.
2. The award is not for his brief flights into the combat zone.
I'm assuming it's like other Navy awards where one actually has to do something. Merely being there gets you a paycheck, not an award.
Carl, Mark has been successful in evoking images of him flying dangerous combat missions. Do you think he 1. was even flying the plane? 2. ever executed a mission for purposes of combat?
If some officer let a reserve intel officer fly a Navy aircraft, s/he's a fucking idiot.
Naval aviators go through a long training pipeline. Why give stick time to a reservist who isn't qualified?
I think there's some possibility Kirk talked his way into flying in an aircraft to give himself "combat experience".
But I expect the unit commander only agreed b/c he was 100% sure no combat was going to occur.
It just doesn't make sense to bump a regular crew member for some reservist, unless the commander was highly confident no combat would occur and, possibly, if s/he was getting an arm twisted from DC.
Who said anything about flying the plane? He has never claimed to be a pilot, that I am aware of. I always assumed that his "flights" involved sitting at a console in the back of an AWACs type plane, probably with no windows, monitoring signals of some kind. Not really swashbuckling stuff, but technically a flight.
I was always somewhat leery of the officer of the year claim, but dismissed it as resume puffery. It didn't occur to me that in politics, puffery matters. Now I really want to know about this alleged award. Thanks for raising the issue, Carl.
Ray, you actually know what you're talking about, but the way Kirk romanticizes his military service and advertises his associations with Navy pilots, he does make it possible for folks to leave with the impression that he's actually flying combat missions himself.
Kirk has claimed in press releases that he "served as part of a squadron flying the EA-6B Prowler electronic aircraft in the skies over Kosovo during Operation Allied Force and over Iraq during Operation Northern Watch" Since a "squadron" can describe a unit or formation of aircraft, one could be left with the impression that Kirk was one of several pilots. The linked site also reminds us of when Kirk used fuzzy language to imply he served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I didn't know entirely what I was talking about, Ellen. Looking at the configuration of the EA-6B, I see that Kirk did in fact have a window.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA-6B_Prowler
And apart from monitoring signals, he may have operated radio jamming equipment, too. He must have done some pretty impressive monitoring and jamming to win "Intelligence officer of the year"!
Kirk had a much more direct lie about his service up on his web site in 2005 and refused to correct if for more than 50 days after I first contacted his staff. He has yet to apologize. I wonder why the press won't cover his lie.
Carl, I was a Naval Intel officer for 12 years. Let me also say I'm also a Republican in Illinois and no fan of Gianoulis. That said Kirk needs to be exposed for his misleading statements. Some thoughts for the media.
1. Ask Kirk for a timeline of his service in Allied Force. How long was he there? Was he assigned to a VAQ squadron as a reservist or did he join the squadron for his time in Kosovo? How could he say he was Intel Office of the year in 1998 when Kosovo went down in 1999?
2. Explain the flight suit picture and tell us how many flights he has over Yugo and Iraq and which planes he was in. I suspect he got 2 hops. 1 in an EA-6B over Kosovo and another in an AWACS E-3 Sentry over N. Iraq. Most intel officers are not qualified for combat missions in tactical aircraft. We are support staff to the squadron or Airwing.
3. Was he ever trained to perform missions in these Aircraft?
4. Did here ever attend SERE school?
5. Can he produce the actual commendation for the Rufus Taylor Unit award? The FITREP is not official proof that he received the award. That is in another part of his military record. Seems he would have the citation in a nice binder and some pictures of the unit receiving the award. Ther ahouls also be a phot copy in his record. How was he notified?
6. Can Kirk release all of his Fitness Reports as well as a list of his medals and ribbons? He should have nothing to hide. That list should be compared with picture of Kirk in uniform. Maybe when President Bush promoted him to Commander in the white house.
7. How long was his tour in Iraq? How long in Afghanistan? I suspect 2 week blocks hob nabbing with the leadership.
8. Does he feel he is actually doing his best as a reservist while serving in Congress? It seems his day job shields him from the inconvenient activation of 12 to 24 months that are common for our National Guard and reserve forces.
NavySpy
What NavySpy said. There was no way in hell that Kirk, a reserve intel weenie was a NATOPS-qualified aircrew member as a reserve intel weenie. The squadron intel guys I served with were proud of their profession, and were not likely to put up with a reserve asshat like Kirk with much tolerance.
As an intel officer in a VAQ squadron his duties would have been limited to doing briefings and debriefings of flight crews pre-and-post mission, not actually flying. The jobs for all four seats in an Electric A-6 (EA-6B) require Wings of Gold (single or double anchors) and are not given to non-flying objects like Kirk.
Puffery on a Bushian Scale.
Thanks for posting NavySpy.
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