Here we are, crashing through another one of Chesterton’s fences, with Tim Walz leading the way. In this episode, we discuss the significance of Walz remaining on the ticket, despite the fact that he has been caught lying — or at the very least, making deceptive insinuations and exaggerations — about his military service (or lack thereof).
Once upon a time, if the public found out that you had committed adultery, your political career was over, as Gary Hart discovered in 1987. Then came Bill Clinton, and he completely normalized cheating on your spouse (and lying about it afterwards) to the point that essentially no one cares about it anymore. Is Tim Walz doing to stolen valor what Bill Clinton did to adultery?
Less than ten years ago, NBC news anchor Brian Williams falsely claimed to have been on a helicopter in Iraq that got hit by an RPG. Due to public outcry, he was placed on leave and eventually demoted. Keep in mind that Williams was a news anchor, not a candidate for Vice President. Tim Walz has falsely claimed to have carried weapons of war in war, and he at the very least strongly implied that he had been in Iraq with the Minnesota National Guard. There was some public outcry, mostly on the Right, but he’s still Kamala Harris’s running mate (about the only person she could find to make her look better by comparison), and most of the institutional media that have covered the story have done so only to tell you why it’s really not a big deal.
Chris Bray has written some great posts about Walz, including this one about the speech in which Walz claimed to have been in Iraq (at an air base that was actually located in Afghanistan):
Here’s what Walz’s fellow National Guardsmen had to say about him:
Is this just one more “Chesterton’s fence” that our clown car of a country will crash through and break completely down? Are there any non-negotiable moral commitments that clownworld Americans still have? Are there any violations at which voters will draw a line in the sand and say, finally and emphatically, no, this cannot stand? Where does this end?
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