I was just going to let this whole ridiculous Dayton teacher confirmation deal drop. You can see from the comments and over here why it's a pointless enterprise to engage the people determined to bring down Mark Dayton by any means they can devise.
But in a weak moment, made a trip to the basement and found the Department of Defense Personnel Security Questionnaire Form DD 48 I completed on 5/16/77 in order to gain a DoD security clearance.
(For those in the audience who say applying is no proof — I received a Secret clearance, but I have no documentation of it. You know, they make you turn in your badge when you leave.)
I saved the form, not because I ever planned to run for office but because it was the most detailed and comprehensive documentation of personal history I had done before or since.
It's mentioned here for two reasons:
- It covers the same period for which Mark Dayton is supposed to be able to produce laborious detail, on command of his enemies.
- It illustrates the difficulty in performing the act his detractors demand he perform. Immediately. While he is busy running for governor.
Note that I created this document 33 years ago — on what looks like my Hermes manual typewriter, but maybe wtfci can prove otherwise.
There's no way today I could recount with any accuracy most of the names dates and employers without it. But since I have it now to look backward in time, let's see whether we could obtain confirmation of my employment in those long-ago jobs.
I'll spare you the detail, but of 10 entities I worked for between 1967 and 1976, only one still exists as an ongoing enterprise — Carleton College. The others have disappeared, been merged into other companies or changed names and changed owners. I know for certain one of listed supervisors is deceased; I've lost contact with all the others, and they are no longer at those addresses.
I contacted Carleton to confirm my employment during the dates specified, between 1/68 and 6/71, during which I held work contract jobs with the college in the post office, food service, bookstore and as a resident assistant.
I don't have permission to name or quote the official who responded to my information request. But in essence, he said emphatically, most of the paper records for student workers before 2000 had long ago been shredded.
But, insist the sleuths, as employers of the governor, we must confirm prior employment. If we find gaps in the record, we will not hire Mark Dayton.
So I checked with a source who has conducted and supervised federal background investigations for a federal agency — including Presidential appointees.
How would the investigator go about checking a 40-year-old employment record?
The investigator responded:
It depends on the position — but I can tell you for a PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTEE requiring Senate confirmation (i.e. Attorney General etc.) it usually only goes back 7-10 years... with the caveat that there is a catchall series of questions designed to find any potential areas that might subject the applicant to coercion. [My note: I'm sure our sleuths can imagine all kinds of reasons a Manchurian Jr. High teacher might be coerced 40 years later to betray his state!]
For a [federal agency] applicant we go back as far as 18th birthday or ten years, I think. The more critical issue for us would also be whether the applicant had ever demonstrated a "lack of candor" on any official document, application, resume etc. So if he claimed somewhere that he taught and we later found (through whatever means) that was not true, that would be grounds for disqualification. [Note: Oh, oppo research Field Day!!]
We would not independently be trying to confirm every job some guy had going back 40 years during the course of a normal background check. It is virtually impossible to go back and confirm all types of employment going back that far — records and companies cease to exist — but just as you did, with some digging you should be able to find SOMEONE that can confirm a guy worked there even if there are no remaining written records with specifics as to dates/salaries/supervisor/duties etc.
None of this will satisfy the sleuths, of course, because they have a different goal.
A normal employer wants to hire you and in an employment check trying to find any reasons not to hire. These folks want nothing to do with Dayton and are furious he will not cooperate in helping them find reasons to confirm that burning desire to destroy him and all he represents.
