Illinois Senator Mark Kirk has apologized to Tammy Duckworth, his challenger in the November election, for the following exchange in their recent debate, as reported by CNN and other outlets. I have bolded the sentence with an orthographic error:
Duckworth:
My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution. I am a daughter of the American Revolution. I've bled for this nation. But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound because I want to be there to say, 'This is what it costs. This is what you're asking us to do. And if that's the case, I'll go.
Kirk:
I forgot your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.
As Kirk should have known, Duckworth's mother is Thai and her father is an American-born Marine veteran, whose family does indeed go back to the Revolution.
My point here, however, is a capitalization error that is found in virtually all of the press reports. Duckworth did not call herself a generic lower-case "daughter," but rather a member of the upper-case "Daughters of the American Revolution." In fact, a DAR chapter has actually erected a statue of Duckworth in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, next to a statue of Molly Pitcher, who was among the first women to take up arms during the Revolution.
Duckworth's membership in the DAR is significant because the organization was once rigidly segregated. In 1939, the DAR refused to allow the African American opera singer Marion Anderson sing before an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. Instead, Eleanor Roosevelt arranged for Anderson to give a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Thus, Duckworth was pointing out something very important and positive about the contemporary United States, which has been missed in the media reports. Of course, Kirk's insulting response was more newsworthy, but it is still worth noting that the DAR has come a long way.
NOTE: This post has been slightly edited by bolding the relevant passage in Duckworth's debate quote.
I wouldn't accept that apology either, Steve. Keep combing thru the news for anything you can find to smear anyone with the label R.
We all know Illinois is a bastion of Democratic virtues, going back to what Daley screamed at Abe Ribicoff, the serial convictions of Illinois Democratic governors, the record breaking corruption in the Chicago Democratic machine, and the ongoing slaughter in its streets.
Now, Steve, you focus on what is so important, right? Any stray comment you can blow up out of all proportion, apology or not, into some sort of faux outrage, as if no "D" every says anything inappropriate.
What a risible game you play when it comes to politics.
BTW, clothing your political attacks in a transparent veil of putative relevance to some less partisan issue (here, the DAR) is not as clever as you seem to think, Steve. Your intent, over this campaign season, has always been clear: to dress up some rank political attack, ripped directly from the fleeting headline talking point of the day, in an interesting (or, often uninteresting) point about some other issue.
Again, Chicago has a terrible reputation: getting worse, really, all the time. It is "clever" posturing and intellectual dishonesty in politics, epitomized by double standards and a sense that one can't smell one's own waste, that is really the hallmark of the Democratic machine's response to its own quite well-established corruption.
Look inward, Steve: into your own party. You'll find many topics that might interest you.
The Democratic machine in Illinois is about providing jobs and Unionized, good paying work. Is that such a bad thing? What's wrong with a dad getting a new Chevy every couple years and taking his kids to the Dells or Disney? That's the American dream. Helping somebody get a job and making a decent living is a good thing. What is wrong with that? So, you got to bang on doors and get out the vote a few hours a year. Big deal.
The alternative is a Ronald Reagan hyper free market where we fire everybody and anybody who happens to protest for better working conditions. We now live in a Nation where its dog eat dog and we screw each other for the sake of the FREE MARKET. There is no more WE THE PEOPLE, but every man for herself and we can't even have single payer health care. The Illinois Democrats are the last champion of community and care.
To repeat:
Illinois is an especially corrupt state. This state has regularly seen its governor hauled off to prison. Four of its last seven governors have been convicted, and three of those four were democrats.
Chicago is notorious for its corruption. Quoting from Wiki (which may not be accurate, but is likely very close:
"Chicago has a long history of political corruption,[10] and has been a de facto monolithic entity of the Democratic Party from the mid 20th century onward.[11][12] Research released by the University of Illinois at Chicago reports that Chicago and Cook County's judicial district recorded 45 public corruption convictions for 2013 and 1642 convictions since 1976 when the Department of Justice began compiling statistics. This prompted many media outlets to declare Chicago the "corruption capital of America".[13]"
John Gotti gave away turkeys on Thanksgiving. Pablo Escobar gave money to the poor. The shallowness and willful ignorance of the home "team's" true nature is truly astounding. As the people of Chicago are mowed down in numbers that rival the war that some railed against for all those years – EVERY YEAR – can you, Steve, finally see your own party's blindness has hobbled your judgment?
Steve: are you able to think your way out of your lockstep political affiliation, at least for a moment? one moment of clarity?
Stop posting about little remarks and trivial matters that you parrot from the talking points of your party and blow up into "major" issues. You are not speaking here to the uneducated masses who fall for this political theatre, although I'll admit that legal academia has become as hide bound as any party apparatus one can imagine.
THink about the system that you support by way of your rank partisanship, think about your abject lack of objectivity (which is a form of intellectual dishonesty) and look at your own party for once, not in the micro, nit picking unseemly way that you attack the Rs, but in a bigger and more profound way.
Can you do that? Honestly, are you capable of thinking about these issues in anything but a trivial and sheep like manner?
"Little remarks and trivial matters…" and "speaking to the uneducated masses who fall for this political theater."
How elitist. Perhaps if academics and the Educated, whatever the hell that means, listened to the masses rather than ridiculed them, our democracy wouldn't be in such a jam with a moron like Trump. We have a know nothing, bigoted blowhard one step away from our nuclear arsenal. God knows if we will even have an effective Article III Branch left.
What is wrong with having a decent job so a working dad can take his kids to Disney? That's not trivial. That is several worlds.
"Four of its last seven governors have been convicted, and three of those four were democrats."
Were any of them Tammy Duckworth? Because if not, your weird screed is not really relevant.
I have to defend my home: We have had some great governors: Adlai Stevenson, Henry Horner, Shapiro, Quinn, Edgar Olgolvie, and Thompson. All served more than honorably. A lot of good folks got their political start in Illinois: Obama, Clinton, Reagan, Dirksen, Durbin, Stevenson and the biggy, Lincoln.
At risk of ostracization for asking something relevant to the post, isn't is also possible that daughter is not capitalized (and should not be) because of the way she used it?
I am a daughter of the American Revolution.
vs
I am a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Thank you, Citizen.
Duckworth's response to Kirk was about her membership in the DAR, so it is pretty clear that she meant "Daughter."
i read it the way concerned citizen does. it's not "Daughter of the American Revolution," it's "DaughterS of the American Revolution," with an "s." Reading the sentence the way it was capitalized reflects an elegant usage by Duckworth.