My first reaction to the Mark Kirk story in today’s Tribune is that most of this is an entirely different story than the military and teaching issues. Memory is a very unstable human characteristic. Memories tend to change when accessed and so stories tend to change over time as you recall them and try and fill in the details each time. So when Mark Kirk says he had a body temperature of 82 degrees, he’s obviously wrong, but probably not lying in the traditional sense of the word. He is literally misremembering.
From a political point of view this doesn’ t matter much because he’s screwed since the press now believes nothing he says and innocent errors will be turned into tests of character.
And here’s where Kirk gets himself in trouble to the point where I have little sympathy with him even if I think the misremembering isn’t a big deal:
Pressed on the timing of the rescue, Kirk told the Tribune the magazine reporter must have made a mistake. Informed the interview was recorded, Kirk then said he did not watch the sunset but denied embellishing his story.
This is just like when he issued a correction for the New York Times, he tries to blame someone else when he could just sit respond with–“oops, I’m human and I screwed up a really old memory and I apologize. It was a traumatic event for me and I clearly don’t have the best recall of it.”
You have exactly and precisely identified the moral center of this story and its significance in the context of the Illinois Senate race.
Well done.
— MrJM
Is it too late to bring back Alan Keyes?
Or at least that cowboy hat… I’ll gladly write in “Allan Keyes’ Cowboy Hat” on Nov. 2.
Once you get caught embellishing the truth, people tend not to give you the benefit of the doubt in these situations.