Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and it will only take some time before one will get to see a full-blown blaze. This is what seems to be happening to Rep. Mark Kirk, who had apologized previously for alleged inaccuracies in the way his military service was presented to the public.

In more recent features in both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, the Senate hopeful’s military record is still the subject of discussion. In the article on the Tribune, the Republican’s use of the term “deployment” is being placed under scrutiny, while the post on the Sun-Times discusses a denial made by White House senior adviser David Axelrod regarding a charge from the Kirk camp saying that it was the White House that leaked information on Kirk’s military record.

So if there was a supposed “leak,” does that mean that there was, indeed, something to hide? Axelrod says of the accusation: “Obviously, Congressman Kirk has some problems that are of his creation and he can’t download them on us. I assure you that everyone here has plenty to do. No one is trafficking in revelatory records about him.”

As for the question on the use of deployment, the Kirk camp is apparently using the term to include two-week training missions that are part of his annual requirements as a Navy reservist. While deployment can carry several meanings within the military, it is undoubtedly usually taken to mean being sent off to war for an extended period of time – especially when spoken to the American public.

Navy spokesman Cmdr. Danny Hernandez states: “I would think that would be (considered) two weeks of annual training. A deployment is a deployment and annual training is annual training.”