The most telling line of today’s Meet the Press debate between Illinois Republican congressman Mark Kirk and Democratic state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias came from the Democrat, who proclaimed: “I didn’t know the extent of their activity.” The line was in reference to the loans to well-known convicted mobsters that Giannoulias serviced while working for his now-defunct family owned and operated Broadway Bank.

The Democrat, here, seems to admit that he knew his clients were engaged in illegal activity, but only a little. Giannoulias, sporting a slicked back hairdo on the Sunday morning television talk show, did try to distance himself from the shady connections, saying, “If I knew then what I know now, these are not the kind of people we do our business with.”