This is a no-no.

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) twice violated military code by politicking while on active duty, the Pentagon says. Kirk has been reaping a whirlwind of his own creation for embellishing his record as a member of the Navy Reserve while campaigning for Senate. Kirk says he "misremembered it wrong."

Afghan vet Terry Welch and his Nitpicker blog again take the lead on the Kirk story. Welch has been hounding Kirk lately for giving interviews in December 2008 about the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and in July 2009 when his Senate campaign account twice tweeted that he was actively serving. That's clearly a violation, the Pentagon says. Air Force Major April Cunningham tells Nitpicker:

Candidates for political office may not participate in any campaign activities while on active duty. They may not update or revise their websites, and they must inform their campaign staff of the applicable restrictions.

Kirk's campaign responds that it "has made all of the congressman's military fitness reports available for review and no concerns were documented."

Maybe not in those fitness reports, but the Pentagon's displeasure with Kirk's electioneering seems clear. So does Kirk's electioneering.

On July 25, 2009, Kirk's Senate account tweeted: "On duty @ the Pentagon's National Military Command Center. All is currently (relatively) quiet. Honor 2 be back w/ my fellow Navy colleagues." The next day, @Kirk4senate posted, "Back on duty in the National Military Command Center - lets hope for a calm day for our troops."

Pretty clear, right? As clear as Kirk's tweet from earlier today: "Thank you for setting the record straight Major Tanner - and thank you for your service http://j.mp/9H02C6."

That link takes you to this comment on a Chicago Sun-Times blog:

"Much has been made of Commander (CDR) Mark Kirk military service in the last couple of weeks. The latest alleges the Rep. Kirk campaigned while serving in Afghanistan, an allegation that I can say categorically is untrue during his time in Afghanistan between December 15, 2008 and January 2, 2009."

Note the dates -- December 15, 2008, to January 2, 2009. That's not when Kirk is accused of politicking from his Twitter account, which would be in July 2009.

UPDATE: As for the Blagojevich interviews, Kirk's campaign says he was in reservist "pre-deployment training" as of Dec. 10 and working at his congressional duties at night. The campaign argues the law allows that. During that week, the campaign says, Kirk gave interviews to WIND, WLS, WFLD, MSNBC, Politico, Fox National TV, WLS and WFLD. Kirk might like for Tanner's supportive comment to set the record straight, but the time of service and the interviews Kirk's campaign cites aren't in the date range he vouches for. And Tanner's comment has nothing to do with that Twitter thing. Kirk must be misremembering it wrong.

Dodge, weave, tweet

[Bonus: Another Kirk military tweet, carefully worded]