Kelly Tshibaka claimed to her supporters in a pre-election rally Thursday that she “worked” for the late Sen. Ted Stevens in Congress.

The Tshibaka resume says that is another lie.

Her resume says she was a summer intern in 1997, one of many hundreds over the years who served in the senator’s office for a few months. Tshibaka was a 17-year-old student then at Texas A&M.

There is no shame in serving as an intern for one of Alaska’s senators. Thousands of young people have done it over the years, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Interns answer the phones, respond to letters, do research and perform other office chores.

There is shame in a candidate for one of the highest offices in the United States misrepresenting a summer internship as a job and trying to spread the false idea that she was tight with Ted.

This is part of the pattern of embellishment and exaggeration that Tshibaka engages in when she gets before a crowd.

After repeating the fable about her parents being homeless to the crowd, Tshibaka said: “And then I end up working for Sen. Ted Stevens. He encourages me to go to law school.”

It made a better story than saying, “I end up being an intern for Sen. Ted Stevens,” which is not nearly as impressive.

She didn’t stop there in a video posted on Facebook, dragging Stevens into her embellished backstory once more, suggesting that she had a role on the appropriations committee.

“I worked for Sen. Stevens on appropriations,” she said. “They stopped appropriations by seniority and earmarks a decade ago. You ever wonder why we don’t get much money anymore?”

She said she put this question to Stevens.

“I said, ‘Sen. Stevens, how did you get us so much money?’”

“I take ‘em fishing,” Stevens said, according to Tshibaka.

“He said that he would set aside part of his budget and he would take senators fishing every year on the Kenai. ‘Whether I like ‘em or not, I take ‘em all.’ And then he would fly them in his Cessna to a rural community, where they’d have to sleep on the floor and use a honeybucket.”

“Then when they got back to D.C., if they didn’t approve the appropriations request, he’d take ‘em fishing again. And that’s how it worked. Maybe we need to take some senators fishing, so they understand Alaska. But what about taking the nation fishing?”

Stevens “told me whenever you get your budget, use it strategically,” said Tshibaka.

She said she would use federal funds to create a “high-tech comms shop that tells Alaska’s story to the Lower 48.”

“That would turn people in the Lower 48 into our ambassadors and our advocates. We’ll start getting investment back up her again, we’ll start opening up Alaska.”

Why anyone who complains about federal waste, fraud and abuse would claim that a public relations campaign about Alaska deserves to be funded by the federal government is beyond me.

*****

Note: Ted Stevens came up with the idea in the early 1990s for an invitation-only Kenai River Classic, a Fourth of July weekend event organized by Bob Penney’s group that featured politicians, celebrities, corporate executives, lobbyists, etc. to raise money for habitat protection. It was sponsored by corporate donations and entrance fees, $5,000 per couple. I don’t know whether it is accurate that Stevens used federal money to fly senators to Alaska for this event.

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