June 17th, 2010
Yesterday, in its story confirming that Congressman Kirk once worked as a teacher, the New York Times incorrectly attributed a background statement to Kirk campaign spokesperson Kirsten Kukowski as follows:
“His spokeswoman said the congressman was referring to nursery school students in Ithaca, not his students in London, during that speech on the House floor in 2006.”
Before and after publication, the Kirk campaign made it clear that the clause “brightest lights of our country’s future” referenced nursery school kids in Ithaca, New York while the “bore scrutiny” clause referenced a few kids at Milestone School in London. As we told the reporter, Mr. Kirk taught mainly English and some foreign students at Milestone. A few of the kids he taught came from difficult family backgrounds and he was surprised by what they saw at home and regarded as normal behavior.
The Times’ mistake is unfortunate – but sometimes mistakes do happen.
Hmmmm…the quote from the NYT:
In a speech on the House floor on Sept. 19, 2006, as he talked about school safety, Mr. Kirk spoke about “the kids who were the brightest lights of our country’s future, and I also remember those who bore scrutiny as people who might bring a gun to class.”
So before the comma he was referring to pre-schoolers and after the comma he was referring to the middle schoolers. While I don’t have the beginning of the sentence handy, I’m finding that to be a bit….ummm… ludicrous.
Or less generously, you might call it yet another lie.
You know-this quote sums up Mark Kirk perfectly:
The Times’ mistake is unfortunate – but sometimes mistakes do happen.
It’s a passive aggressive lie.
As Ellen says, “It takes a village to keep track of Kirk’s lies.”
But is Kirk now claiming he was anxious about Brits bringing handguns to class?
B/c, if I’m not mistaken the UK is about the most stringent country on handguns in Europe.
That was probably before the really tight crackdown on handguns so while it’s obviously a lie, that part is semi-plausible.
I don’t see how a sentence with a reference to “our country” could be construed as referring to pupils in the UK, unless Kirk is a secret Brit.
That’s it Bitter (i’d call you BS, but kind of a problem there)–you have figured it out–he is also a British subject probably born in Kenya!
This might actually be a fun contest–what could proceed the rest of the sentence to make it both consistent with Kirk’s claim and anything resembling an English sentence.