As we noted yesterday, 18th District GOP congressional candidate Aaron Schock is taking some heat from his Democratic opponent over the revelation that he notarized a back-dated document for his parents in 2000.  The initial AP article quoted a notary public from New Jersey saying point-blank that doing so is "illegal."  Meanwhile, Schock contends that the job of a notary is simply to verify the identity of the signer.  Now he's describing the source of the controversy as a mere "clerical mistake":

“The fundamental role of a notary is to verify the person signing the document. Now, if there was an incorrect date on it, that was a mistake that I made. It was a clerical mistake and it was made over eight years ago. The relevance that has to the United States congressional race now, eight years later, I'm not sure”, said Shock.

A clerical mistake suggests that the back-dating was unintentional.  But the AP article makes clear that Schock's parents knew exactly what they were doing.

Capitol Fax's Rich Miller rips into the Peoria media -- and rightfully so -- for failing to hold Schock accountable on this issue:

It’s truly unfortunate that the local media doesn’t seem to be calling Schock out on this fabrication, allowing the arguments to be played as a he said, she said affair without providing factual context.

Meanwhile, Colleen Callahan is calling for a criminal investigation:

Terry Towery, the campaign manager for Democrat Colleen Callahan, says she has asked Peoria County State's Attorney Kevin Lyons to investigate, and believes Lyons has agreed. Lyons' office declined to answer questions.

UPDATE (2 pm): Billy Dennis weighs in:

[T]he whole “youthful” indescretion” thing isn’t washing with me either. He was old enough to BE a notary public in the first place, which means somewhere along the line he willingly assumed the responsibiity to vouch for the honesty of the documents he was notarizing. He was also a member of the Peoria School District 150 Board at the time. Presumably, somewhere along the line, he told voters to trust him despite about his age.

Now that he got caught screwing up, he’s playing the “youthful indescretion” card like he was caught shoplifting or something.

My advice — and he’s taken my advice before — is to just say “I screwed up” and stop blaming others and stop making excuses. The underlying offense isn’t all that bad. And as both Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon learned, its not the crime it’s the coverup that willl bite you in the ass.