Gov. Tim Walz began his political career with a lie.
According to the story that launched his career, Walz, a “football coach” and a “command sergeant major” took two students to a Bush campaign event only to be subjected to a “KGB-style interrogation” because one of the students had a Kerry sticker on his wallet.
Walz, facing arrest by the Secret Service (because one of his students had a Kerry sticker on his wallet) then demanded “if they really wanted to arrest a command sergeant major who’d just returned from fighting the war on terrorism.”
Since then we’ve learned that every part of that story was a lie.
Walz was not a command sergeant major, he hadn’t returned from fighting a war and he wasn’t even actually a football coach. And the entire story which he kept on repeating as recently as 2020 never happened. Instead, Walz showed up with some of his students outside a Bush event with a protest sign claiming to be a veteran of the War in Afghanistan who supported Kerry.
That there wasn’t one single true thing about the story that began Walz’s political career somehow perfectly encompasses the Baron Munchausen of Minnesota.
There have been some world class liars in politics and two of them, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, launched the first night of the DNC convention, but if Hillary and Joe were prone to occasional grandiose lies about landing at an airport under fire or having their kids die in Iraq, Walz is unique in that not one thing about his political origin story was true. Not one single thing.
But according to the media, Gov. Tim Walz doesn’t lie, he just ‘misspeaks’ a lot.
When a politician claims that he fought in a war and didn’t, that’s a lie. But a typical mainstream media story headlined the event as “Walz ‘misspoke’ in saying he served ‘in war.’” After doing every possible thing to suggest that he had served in Iraq, it turned out that Walz had served abroad in Italy. It was an understandable mistake because both countries started with an I.
And how was Walz supposed to tell the difference between gelatos and IEDs anyway?
The media stepped in to claim that he had ‘misspoken’ in years of speeches and biographical entries (not to mention in a photo with a protest sign) of claiming a rank that he was not entitled to and acted like a veteran who had served in combat zones when he had left the service as soon as he realized that he would actually be deployed to serve in Iraq.
Every time another Walz lie falls apart, the media claims that he misspoke while the Harris-Walz campaign declares that making up stuff is the sign that he’s a normal person, not a politician.
In the real world however, normal people tell the truth while politicians lie all the time.
“Governor Walz speaks the way real people speak and often off the cuff. The American people appreciate that Governor Walz tells it like it is and doesn’t talk like a politician, and they appreciate the difference between someone who occasionally misspeaks and a pathological liar like Donald Trump,” Walz’s spokesman recently claimed after he was caught lying about IVF.
The Harris-Walz campaign isn’t even denying that Walz lies, it’s defining deviancy down by contending that he doesn’t lie often enough to be considered a pathological liar.
Walz had taken to claiming that he was only able to have children due to IVF.
It turned out that he had lied (again) and that the actual procedure was an IUI. The Harris-Walz campaign claimed that he wasn’t aware of the difference and “talks how normal people talk.”
Only if normal people lie all the time.
IUIs are a minor inexpensive procedure that can cost as little as $500 while IVF procedures can cost over $25,000. IVF procedures are surgical and often require general anesthesia. Confusing them is like confusing an ingrown toenail and open heart surgery. The only way that Gov. Walz could have confused the two would be if he couldn’t tell the difference between $500 and $25,000 which would explain his state’s financial crisis after the governor’s spending sprees.
Politicians telling politically convenient lies is nothing new, but the media has taken to lying about Walz’s lies. “Tim Walz has never directly said he and his wife had their children via IVF, but some of his past statements have implied that was the case,” NBC News claimed.
“Today’s IVF Day. Thank God for IVF — my wife and I have two beautiful children,” Walz had said.
Other Walz ‘implications’ included claiming “If it was up to JD Vance, I wouldn’t have a family because of IVF.” and a fundraising letter titled, “My wife and I used I.V.F. to start a family.’’
But all of that could mean anything.
According to the Harris-Walz campaign, Gov. Walz doesn’t make stuff up because he lies a lot, but because he’s an ordinary person and like most ordinary people speaks off the cuff.
When Gov. Walz lies, it’s because he speaks the way real people speak and not like a politician. And then he not only lies once, twice and thirty times, he then sends out fundraising letters repeating the lies. But this isn’t the behavior of a pathological liar, but of a regular guy.
Telling it like it is means actually telling it like it’s not.
Walz’s lies, according to his campaign spokesman, show how authentic he really is. The more Tim Walz lies, the more authentic this war veteran and football coach who had children by IVF is. The more integrity a politician is, the less of a relationship he has with the truth.
Lying is the new truth and the more Gov. Tim Walz lies, the more we should trust him.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
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Comments
I would not dispute the other "mispokens" of the Gov but the difference between IUI and IVF is not a reason to call a man a liar and to base half of your usually well thought-out essays. Please be reasonable.
ReplyDeleteIVF is a surgical procedure costing tens of thousands of dollars conducted under anesthesia.
DeleteIUI is a low cost sperm deposit and insertion.
It's unreasonable to believe that he confused the two.
IUI and IVF are two types of artificial fertility treatments to help you get pregnant when nature isn't doing the trick on its own. During IUI, sperm is injected directly into your uterus. IVF is a multi-step reproductive technology that involves egg stimulation, retrieval, lab fertilization and transfer.31 Jan 2022
DeleteIn the broad category they're both fertility treatments.
DeleteIUI is about improving sperm. IVF is a much larger scale solution to deal with a lot more significant fertility issues.
“Baron Munchausen of Minnesota” - I lost it reading the new nickname for that lying bastard. Great article!
ReplyDeleteit's an insulting comparison for the Honorable Baron
DeleteIf Walz's lies demonstrate how "authentic" he is and if Trump (as the Walz spokesman said) is a "pathological liar", then the obvious conclusion is that Trump is far more authentic and far more of an ordinary guy than Walz.
ReplyDeletevery clever
DeleteBlistering .
ReplyDeleteBut it will be a badge of honour to this Archie Bunker tribute act ,just as it was for Den Hastert .
Politics is done. When spokesman for liars tell us that he only lies because we do, and don't care about truth is typical
Great piece Mr G.
Maybe people from Minnesota lie all the time too, so lying isn’t a big deal. Maybe he found the right state for his political style.
ReplyDeleteWhen I deal with anyone, I want to hear the truth. In order to trust and have faith in someone, there must be honesty.
ReplyDeletePost a Comment