Saturday, June 30, 2007

Dems Deem Illinois 10th Dumb

How else to explain this ridiculous internet ad. The Democrats have cherry picked votes during Congressman Mark Kirk's (R-IL) years in the House to produce a commercial that states that Mark is bad for the military. By "cherry picking" I mean that certain bills may be voted against due to the fact that there is a better bill in the hopper that covers the same issue or the bill may simply not be a good bill for any number of (pork laden?) reasons. I also seem to recall an obscure issue some years back in which the VA didn't spend all of it's funds from the previous budget year and those left-over funds were counted as part of the then current budget year; I'm not sure if that is the issue that the Dems have going in this ad or not. I do not have time to investigate their citations this morning but I will do so next week.

The first problem with telling people that Mark is bad for the military is that he is actually, you know, in the military. Yes Congressman Kirk is an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserves, he is a Lieutenant on an AWACS plane and he has been flying missions over Iraq and Afghanistan as a sitting congressman. The guy being run by the Dems for the 10th District Illinois is Dan Seals. Mr. Seals lost to Mark less than 8 months ago, yet he announced his candidacy for that seat a few weeks ago. Mr. Seals ran last year as a "retired" thirty-something banker who lived outside of the district. Now I have no idea whether or not Mr. Seals has actually moved to the 10th district but this ad campaign is ridiculous. The Democrats are running this military themed ad in support of a guy who hasn't even worked for a good portion of this century and against a congressman who has been flying missions over Iraq.

If it matters I attended Joseph Sears School and New Trier East High School with Mark and consider him a smart, well rounded, level-headed guy, in fact much more level headed than your humble (ed. what?) correspondent. Mark is an impressive guy, at Christmas time the year that we got out of college I ran in to him on the El, I was just starting out on my journey through the Chicago Board of Trade as a bottom of the ladder runner. Mark on the other hand was living in London and working for a Member of Parliament. Mark was always like that, smart enough to open doors and savvy enough to do something with those openings. I was not surprised when I heard that Mark had joined the Reserves, they need sharp people too.

The 10th District of Illinois is a moderating, formerly heavily Republican district that has been represented by moderates for decades, Mark is a continuation of that moderateness but even in that very wealthy and well educated Midwestern district the folks on the left side of the spectrum have started to demand the liberal purity often demanded on the coasts. Last year I was surprised to hear some previously relatively moderate Democrats describe Mark as a "lap-dog to Bush". Having not even attended medical school I would shy away from some sort of diagnosis but it did sound a lot like Bush Derangement Syndrome. The Democrat's latest internet ad takes full advantage of some willingness on the part of the left to believe rhetoric over reality. I mean come on, the Dems want the people of the 10th to believe that the guy who would be good for the military is the one who was likely seated at the "kitchen table" in Charlie Trotter's at the same time that the sitting congressman who is supposedly bad for the military was doing 10 hour shifts in an AWACS plane over Iraq. Pathetic.

Big Hat Tip to Publia at the Wilmette blog, thanks for the e-mail!

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yours, a brilliant post. While I was sitting around wondering why we have to be subjected to a year-and-a-half Congressional campaign, doing nothing other than trying to gather my wits, you were clever enough to point out the chicanery of the Dan Seals for Congress bunch. Thanks to you we have some first-rate thinking on the matter to expose what is esentially a fraudulent ad.

4:21 PM  
Blogger dave in boca said...

Nice site. We lived in Glencoe and Willmette while I was working at Amoco during the nineties, during the MJ era. My 18-year old daughter still loves Chicago and I am one of those lost souls who is a Cubbie fan, even though I grew up in Milwaukee with the Braves. The Brewers don't exist for me. But I still back the Pack.

We just heard from our Lincolnshire friends over the weekend. My daughter went to Faith, Hope Charity in Winnetka. Great memories.

9:46 PM  

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