Mark Kirk Posing as an independent

Mark Kirk Posing as an independent
By Charles Sawyer, Wilmette
September 3, 2006
Letters to the Editor
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times and Charles Sawyer


A few weeks ago, flyers for Mark Kirk were being handed out at the Wilmette train station. I took one and was astonished to see ''Independent'' in large letters, but ''Republican'' was nowhere to be found, even in the fine print. Today, I went to Kirk's re-election Web site. There it was again: ''Independent'' in huge letters, but again ''Republican'' was nowhere to be found.

You would think that Kirk is not a member of President Bush's party, the Republican Party, but you would be wrong. In fact, Kirk is a member of the Republican Party in good standing, and he is an important member of Republican Party leadership. He is the ''assistant majority whip'' in the U.S. House of Representatives.

What an assistant majority whip does is make sure that Republicans in the House vote the way the Republican Party leaders want them to. It is hard to believe that Kirk became assistant majority whip by being ''independent,'' as his campaign literature and Web site would have us voters in the 10th District believe.

I am a Navy veteran, like Kirk. We sailors, as Kirk knows, have a saying for what he is doing in the 10th Congressional District: sailing under false colors.