For at least a week, conservative media have been raising alarms about Tim Walz’s repeated heroic actions over the past two decades. For years, the former Minnesota National Guard member has either directly said or implied that he was deployed to a war zone. In one video, he claimed he had carried weapons “in war.” In another, he misstated his rank in a campaign statement, concealing the fact that he was demoted after his retirement.
SEE: Tim Walz goes all out with his anti-gun tirade
These are not the only examples, however. During a protest against George W. Bush, Walz held up a sign claiming to be a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, which took place in Afghanistan. An article in The Atlantic quotes Walz as telling a then-aide to the former president that he had just returned from the “war on terror.”
I could go on, not to mention the others, including Nancy Pelosiwho claimed that Walz had served on a “battlefield.” Despite numerous false mentions, the governor of Minnesota never made a correction. As a war veteran confronted When Walz raised the issue in 2009, nothing came of it.
It doesn’t matter that Walz Also has repeatedly lied about his retirement rank.
2009. Congressman Tim Walz sends a farewell message to some soldiers currently stationed in Iraq.
In the message, Walz claims he is a “retired Command Sergeant Major.”
Lying about your rank in a farewell message to soldiers on deployment is as dishonorable as it can be. pic.twitter.com/f7AIqPK8ky
– MAZE (@mazemoore) 8 August 2024
In low, it’s a pretty large scandal, and on Friday it finally got large enough that the Kamala Harris campaign could no longer ignore it. In an apparent attempt to put out the fire, an unnamed spokesperson claimed that Walz had simply “slipped of the tongue” regarding the video in which he claimed he carried guns “in war.”
A senior Harris-Walz campaign spokesman told me that Tim Walz “misstated” when he spoke in 2018 about “weapons of war that I carried in war.”
Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years. He trained in the utilize of “weapons of war” but was never deployed to a war zone. pic.twitter.com/nM3a9phLJH
—Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) 10 August 2024
I have already written about the explanation itself, which is very flawed and drips with arrogance, but what I want to point out above is WHO reports this statement. Jonathan Karl works for ABC News. He is the “chief Washington correspondent,” which means he’s the large shot when it comes to presidential politics.
How many times did Karl mention the video of Walz stealing Valor before that statement from the Harris campaign? The answer is zero, and his network only mentioned it once as part of a “fact check” to rebut statements made by JD Vance. They never reported the video of Walz lying about carrying weapons in war as a standalone story. It wasn’t until Karl had a statement from an unnamed spokesperson in his hand that he even bothered to acknowledge the story’s existence.
This is no accident. This is how the press works, and it is its primary tool for bias. Believe it or not, there are editorial standards in place at mainstream news outlets. This means that you will not often see a newspaper print an outright lie. Instead, they hide their bias in informal language around the events they report. More than that, they hide their bias through obfuscation. What they do not report is just as vital as what they do report.
Karl and all the other mainstream press outlets had a chance to do their jobs and report on the video of Walz lying about his service as a standalone story. Instead, they ignored it until they were given the excuse to do so. They are nothing more than stenographers. A real journalist would have immediately asked this spokesperson about the dozen or so other examples of stolen bravery that are floating around. Instead, Karl simply spread the message as if he were on the Harris campaign payroll.
That’s what Republicans are up against this election cycle, and it’s a daunting challenge. The few weeks the press was truthful about Joe Biden’s mental state were just a cynical ploy to get him off the ballot. Now that he’s off the ballot, it’s business as usual.
