Illinois Republican Senate nominee Mark Kirk is learning a valuable lesson--once you give the press a narrative about you, they are going to ride that narrative in the sunset.
Just when it seemed the seemingly endless avalanche of stories about him exaggerating his biography for political punch had abated, he gets contradicted once again. This time, it was for what he claims was his very rationale for entering public life:
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk for a decade has told the story of how he nearly drowned when he was 16 while sailboating on Lake Michigan and how his rescue by the Coast Guard inspired him to pursue a career in public service.
The story is sprinkled with attention-grabbing details, but there are inconsistencies in Kirk's statements that suggest parts of his real-life drama have been embellished, a Tribune review has found.
The Chicago Tribune is on the case, and has unveiled a quartet of details within the story, which range from the mundane to the dramatic, which seem less-than-likely to have occurred as the Congressman describes them.
- Kirk told a magazine that he stood on his capsized boat and watched the sunset, and was rescued as darkness fell around him. In truth the incident actually occurred hours before sunset, with a contemporaneous newspaper account showing that the rescue (which occurred in June of 1976) was actually at 2:52 PM.
- Kirk said he was one-to-two miles offshore at the time of the capsizing. A contemporaneous news account placed the incident one-half mile off of the shore, and a witness interviewed by the Tribune placed it between one-quarter and one-half mile.
- Kirk said that he
saw swam for a mile in 42-degree water before the Coast Guard finally rescued him. This was contradicted by a doctor and former director of health and safety for the Coast Guard, who noted that it would be pretty much physically impossible for anyone to swim that long in water that cold.
- Kirk also said his core body temperature had dropped to 82 degrees by the time of his rescue. This was disputed by a trio of doctors interviewed by the Tribune, who cited that hypothermia sets in at 95 degrees, and agreeing with the Coast Guard doctor on the fact that someone with a core body temperature that low would have been extraordinarily unlikely to remain conscious, let alone swimming. Furthermore, one of the doctors interviewed asserted that had Kirk's body temperature dropped to such a dramatic extent, the hospital would never have treated and released Kirk as quickly as they apparently did.
Now, no one is going to argue that this is, in the world of campaign narratives, on a par with exaggerating military awards and credentials. But the continuation of the pattern is telling. So are some other factors: Kirk originally put the blame on the discrepancies on the magazine reporter who had interviewed him about the capsize story, until being set straight by the Tribune:
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.
The bigger problem for Kirk is that the media has a narrative on him that they he must now wear and own for the duration of the campaign. They have ID'd him as a teller of tales, and every public pronouncement is under scrutiny. The Tribune admitted as much when they said this:
The Tribune examined the boating story in light of Kirk's acknowledgment that he overstated his military career.
The inconsistencies in the rescue story may not have the same galvanizing impact of inflating a military resume, but they raise a new set of questions about whether Kirk has added details to his true-life stories that make a better storyline.