Political Points — Non kosher hog riders

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**Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), running for the open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, has been plagued by apologies for exaggerations of his record — he did not, as an individual, win a Navy intelligence reward, he did not come under fire in Iraq, he was an assistant with a play group and not a teacher. Now Democrats are accusing Kirk of falsely claiming credit for a hunk of the Iran sanctions act passed this summer. This time, however, the Kirk campaign is sticking to its guns and accusing the Dems of politicking.

Kirk has said that legislation he and Democrat Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) sponsored shaped legislation that targeted companies that deliver refined petroleum to Iran, a major crude producer, but with a refinement capacity that has been in disarray. He said Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee, eventually slapped his name atop the bill — which is customary, because major bills need heft to pass.

Berman says Kirk had nothing to do with the final bill, according to this Chicago Sun Times account, a notion Kirk’s campaign strongly rejects. Backing Kirk is Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking member of the committee. That puts her in the uncomfortable position of directly contradicting Berman — upsetting the Foreign Affairs Committee’s  norm of chairs and ranking members going out of their way to get along.

Kirk gets this one, I think, on points — as the Sun Times notes, Berman thanked Andrews for his work, a hint that the bill he and Kirk shaped played a role in the final bill. So did AIPAC when the bill passed. And, the sanctions are pretty much identical.

The irony is that Iran, finally, is refurbishing its refinement capability and that portion of Berman’s bill might not be relevant within a year. More biting are the financial sector sanctions that Berman’s more expansive bill includes. They are already having an effect in isolating Iran from the world’s economy.

In that sense, Kirk’s bill — which did not include the portion targeting banks — is not identical to the final bill. That makes Kirk’s statement to the Sun Times, following, hubristic, but not quite an exaggeration on a par with the other fibs, which his campaign has acknowledged:

The Iran Sanctions Bill, it was originally Kirk-Andrews, but if you were going to move it, that means you need to adjust to the power of the House. This legislation eventually became Howard Berman’s legislation, who is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He had my full approval in moving that forward under his badge.

So, like I said, a win on points, but in no way a knockout.

UPDATE: Kirk’s campaign called, and I just sifted through the various versions of the hill. So, perhaps not quite as hubristic as I first said: The Berman bill as introduced in April 2009, targeted only refined petroleum imports, and would appear to replicate Kirk-Andrews; as it developed, it expanded sanctions to target Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the banking sector, and so as passed in December 2009, went much further than Kirk’s original. The version signed into law this summer by President Obama, following House-Senate conferencing, also included provisions targeting human rights violators and facilitating sanctions on the state level.

**If there’s a signature Jewish symbol of Tea Party discontent with the Democrats, it’s Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.).

In 2006, a good year for the Democrats, he was elected for the first time in Florida’s 22nd, straddling Broward and Palm Counties, edging out veteran GOP incumbent Clay Shaw by 3 points. Two years later, he seemed in for the long haul, fending off a credible challenge from an African American Iraq War veteran, Allen West, by 10 points.

Now West is back and Klein is considered the hardest to call among Jewish incumbents. West, backed by the Tea Party, is an effective, tireless campaigner who is strongly pro-Israel. So is Klein, who has fronted much pro-Israel legislation, but West has made an issue of President Obama‘s tense relations with Israel in the campaign.

West, however, has a foot-shooting habit — he accused a Klein videographer chronicling his campaign  (a practice that has become routine) of  "Gestapo" tactics, and stuck by the claim even after it was revealed that the videographer’s grandparents were Holocaust survivors.

Now NBC News reports that West defended the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a group the FBI is investigating for racketeering. In emails with a backer who expressed concerns about the group, West — who is an avid motorcyclist (no harm there) — says the group is not "criminal" and notes that it has supplied him with bodyguards.

West’s campaign, in a statement, slams the report as partisan  and says he has no ties to the group. In an interview with Hotline, West ridicules the notion of an association, noting that the group does not accept blacks, Jews and gays as members. (In neither case does he address the emails obtained by NBC, however.)

In what has been a hard-nosed race, one thing, at last, that Klein and West have in common.

Here’s the NBC report:

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