When Is It Considered Pathological?

Filed in National by on June 19, 2010

When does résumé puffery go from something embarrassing if common to something pathological? Exaggerations on a résumé are fairly common – up to 43% of résumés contain at least one exaggeration, according to one group. Serial liar Mark Kirk, the Republican candidate for Senate in Illinois, has been caught in his 11th résumé lie. This time he was caught exaggerating his time as a nursery school teacher.

A leader of the church in upstate New York where Representative Mark S. Kirk of Illinois claims he worked as a nursery school teacher said on Friday that he had overstated his role there.

The leader, Sally Grubb, a member of the administrative council at Forest Home Chapel, a Methodist church in Ithaca, N.Y., said Mr. Kirk had a limited role while working part-time in a work-study program while he was a student at Cornell University nearly three decades ago.

“He was never, ever considered a teacher,” Ms. Grubb said in a telephone interview after researching the history of Mr. Kirk’s association with the nursery school. “He was just an additional pair of hands to help a primary teaching person.”

In an interview Friday, Ms. Grubb said that she had told a representative of the Kirk campaign of her concerns when the campaign contacted her on Thursday to try to verify Mr. Kirk’s time at the nursery. She said she had spoken to the teacher who led what was then a play group that met in the church basement. The teacher had a “vague recollection” of having him as a work-study student, Ms. Grubb said, but she did not remember his name. She added that Mr. Kirk did not have major responsibilities at the play group, like creating lesson plans, and he was assistant who played with the children.

Probably one of the worst job in politics right now has to be Mark Kirk’s résumé checker.

Here’s the running tally of lies that Mark Kirk has been caught telling about his own experience:

(1) falsely claimed he served “in” Operation Iraqi Freedom
(2) falsely claimed to “command the war room in the Pentagon”
(3) falsely claimed to have won the U.S. Navy’s Intelligence Officer of the Year award
(4) falsely claimed to have been shot at by the Iraqi Air Defense network
(5) falsely claimed to be a veteran of Desert Storm
(6) falsely claimed to be the only lawmaker to serve during Operation Iraqi Freedom
(7) falsely claimed to have been shot at in Kosovo
(8) falsely claimed to have been shot at in Kandahar
(9) falsely claimed to have been repeatedly “deployed” to Afghanistan
(10) falsely claimed not to have violated Defense Department rules on mingling politics with his military service.

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (16)

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  1. cassandra m says:

    Mark Kirk, if that’s really his name…

    Laugh of the day!

    😆

  2. DOI Worker says:

    I’ve been with the DOI for a lot of years so I have first hand knowledge of when “resume enhancement” becomes pathological. When you’re the DE insurance commissioner and invent it altogether. She couldn’t find the high-paying job she wanted because of no education and no work experience, so she lived off men. Whenever there weren’t any, she took minimum wage retail jobs like any other high school dropout because that’s all she’s qualified for. She was on the DOI payroll for a couple of years as the then-commissioner’s girlfriend but hardly ever showed up. Corporations check resumes, voters don’t. So she made contacts and ran for office and they installed her. The power structure knows about her lies and her bribe and kickback taking but ignores them because she’s a fellow Democrat. Fatass Jacobson is acting like he’s the real commissioner. He probably is, but who elected him?

    Karen Weldin Stewart
    (1) falsely claimed to have a high school diploma
    (2) falsely claimed to have attended college
    (3) falsely claimed to own a working insurance consulting business
    (4) falsely claimed to have been a “deputy receiver” in the DOI when it was really a no show job the next commissioner fired her from
    (5) falsely claimed to have been an executive in a large insurance operation
    (6) falsely claimed to have authored legislation for Harris McDowell and an article in the WNJ when she is really functionally illiterate

    On the DOI website’s bio titled “Meet Karen”, she
    (1) falsely claimed to be related to the famous DE Weldin family after whom a Wilmington road was named. This was recently deleted but is available on some insurance-related websites via any search engine
    (2) falsely claims to have been a “retail executive” when she only owned a very small fabric store on Rt. 202 that she bankrupted in three years.
    (3) falsely claims to sit on the “Widener University Advisory Board” but the university denies it and said there’s no such board. Each discipline has its own advisory board. And why would they want a high school dropout anyway, no matter what public office she managed to get herself elected to.

    Proof of all of this was submitted to Markell and Denn and the WNJ before she was sworn in, but without result. She should never have been allowed to take office. Many other state and federal officials whose lies weren’t as bad were made to resign. The bribes and kickbacks are harder but not impossible to prove because her bought and paid-for (with state funds) cronies are protecting her. But that won’t stop the auditors or law enforcement.

  3. AQC says:

    gotta agree with DOI worker

  4. anon says:

    This shit is getting so old.

    “Proof” does not mean unverifiable anonymous statements.

    If you have actual proof of these things, then you should have no problem supplying it to TNJ or DL or CRI. Or setting up your own website and posting the documents there.

    Until you do, shut the FUCK up. Please. You’re only making KWS look like the victim of a bunch of bitter smear artists who hold the world’s longest grudge.

  5. DOI Worker says:

    This is hardly a smear campaign. There’s no point in supplying proof to others when Markell and Denn ignored legitimate and unequivocal evidence. That’s the issue you should address. So until the state’s leaders or anyone else does something about her, it’s you people who should shut the FUCK up about other politicians KWS could give lessons in lying and corruption to.

  6. anon says:

    If you have this “proof” and “legitimate and unequivocal evidence,” then you should have zero problem supplying it to other people. Saying that it’s pointless to do so because two politicians “ignored” your “evidence” is a bullshit answer. Since you won’t provide it, I assume you’re full of crap and a liar to boot.

    What you posted is the same old garbage that has been handed out here by a small group – maybe just the same person – of anti-KWS people for the last year and a half, from the name-calling to the “functionally illiterate” claim. When pressed to back up your statements, you fade away into the ether.

    I’m not a fan of KWS. I think she’s at best incompetent. But I strongly dislike anonymous assholes who either won’t publish their “proof” or won’t put their names to their statements. So until you can provide that “proof” – yes, everything you’re doing is a smear campaign. So don’t be surprised when you’re ignored again for the 47th time.

  7. sinner says:

    DOI worker you must have lovely brown eyes because you sure arefull of shit:). You are a classic smear artist. But you do it with training wheels. Pick a tougher target for Christs sake! Put up or shut the fuck up!!!!!

    Redacted by UI – be careful of attempted outing.

  8. sinner says:

    i forgot i am so sorry… piercing blue eyes… stil full of shit:)

  9. DOI Worker says:

    Sinner, I know who you are but you’re just as stupid as your protege. Remember this: Your days of ripping off the state are numbered.

  10. fightingbluehen says:

    This sounds too fantastic to be true. If it is true, we have bigger problems in the state government than anybody ever thought’

  11. DOI Worker says:

    Exactly. And re. re-submitting the evidence, I doubt anyone other than law enforcement will do anything if both the governor and the lieutentant governor don’t want to pursue it for whatever reasons of their own.

  12. anon says:

    Let me get this straight.

    You sent your “proof” to Markell, Denn and TNJ (which reporter or editor?). Now you’re bitching that nothing’s been done. Yet you don’t have the balls (or the “proof”) to make your case again. Instead you call people fatasses and denigrate their education.

    Can you see how you aren’t winning any friends, even among those inclined to be KWS foes?

  13. sinner says:

    No ROI honey you don’t know me but now I am 100% sure who YOU are:)! Take your material to the FBI, the AG, God or maybe the “award winning”, “arrest avoiding” investigative reporter “Six gun Lee”! The result will be the same nothing will be done for a very simple reason. THERE IS NOTHING! It is not completely true that there are no snakes in Ireland YOU are the exception. Please go crawl back in your hole.

  14. DOI Worker says:

    Aptly named Sinner: You’re 100% delusional. And you’re not fooling anyone. That reference to Ireland makes no more sense than the canned responses you fed KWS to spout at the hearings. She is the snake who with your help deceives people for her own profit and yours to keep protecting and doing all her work for her. What’s the old saying…Methinks thou doest protest too much. You should worry, though, the truth will come out soon enough.

    Anon: There is no education to denigrate because she has none. If you’re so incensed about it, you’re free to check the same sources I did. Very simple. Brandywine College has never heard of her and neither has the “College of Insurance” she started after the election to claim she attended, nor the “Fashion Institute of Technology” she also claimed to have attended. The only College of Insurance in the US is part of St. John’s University who has no record of her, like Widener University where she claims to sit on a non-existent advisory board. I’m not looking for friends here. I’m just trying to expose this appalling situation to as many people as possible, and the Del Lib blog is the most widely read in the state. After all, we have to work under this woman and her cronies and see the fraud and waste every day.

    You people are good examples of why Delaware has the dubious distinction of having the most corrupt political system in the nation. I believe it’s called the Delaware Way.

  15. sinner says:

    DOI babe, the “sinner” has done his job I am “retired” We have one thing in common however, neither of us work at DOI and in your case i wa wondering do you have a greed card? Thanks for the great discussion and have a nice life:)

  16. DOI Worker says:

    You’re a liar and a bad one at that. We have absolutely nothing in common.