Is There Anything Real About Mark Kirk

First, we learned that Congressman Kirk claimed to have one a military award he never won. Then, we learned that he claimed to be deployed in Afghanistan when he was really in Afghanistan training on weekends. Now, we learn he's been inflating his record as a teacher.

New questions are emerging about a candidate's record in the race for the U.S. Senate.

First Mark Kirk was questioned about the accuracy of his military record. Now there are questions about what Kirk says about his teaching career.

Did Mark Kirk misremember, exaggerate or lie when he talked about a teaching job he held 29 years ago? Did he really believe that some of the pre-schoolers he taught might bring a gun to class? It is the latest episode in a sometimes unbelievable US Senate campaign.

While he has never claimed to have been an accredited teacher, Congressman Kirk's campaign often mentions their candidate's brief experiences in the classroom: He taught the 1982-83 academic year at a private high school in London and earlier in 1981, the campaign says, at a church run nursery school in Ithaca, New York.

What's really amazing about all this is that Kirk has won five elections to the U.S. Congress. None of his opponents, and he usually won handily, ever figured this out. It appears that Mark Kirk can't seem to keep things straight about his own history and that doesn't give one a good feeling about how he'll speak about the issues of the day.

It once seemed impossible that Alexi Giannoulias could win. He's the ultimate insider in a year when that is not a good place to be. Furthermore, all his so called accomplishments are now seen as liabilities. It appeared as though the failure of his family bank would be the major story. Now, the story is Mark Kirk's inability to tell the truth.

It should be noted that LeAlan Jones is the Green Party candidate for Senate from Illinois. He once polled at 14%. He's had no scandals that we know of.