By Ray Cardello for August 16, 2024, Season 28 / Post 9

I hope this will be the last word I write about the character flaws of the Vice President Nominee, Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota. This topic is distracting when we have minimal time to concentrate on the country’s issues and the candidate’s policies. The problem with comparing policies and platforms is that we only hear from Donald Trump about his vision and plan for the future. Kamala Harris has hit the three-week mark since assuming the top of the Democrat ticket without fielding a single question from the media. She is making campaign appearances and speeches but has yet to stand and take questions from the press. I may have repeated that thought, but it is crucial. Kamala Harris is obviously adopting the Biden Basement Playbook to win the Presidency. That game plan may have worked once for Biden when he had COVID to use as an excuse, but it will not, and should not, work a second time for Harris.

As for Walz, he lied to America. This is not a case of messing up the data or forgetting the dates on his timeline. The dilemma that Walz finds himself in results from the embellishment of his military career. He told the American people that he was in a war zone in the Middle East with his National Guard Platoon. His problem is that he retired from the Guard before his platoon was deployed. Therefore, he never served in combat. Instead of Walz falling on his sword and admitting he misspoke, he doubled down, pointing the finger at any politician or member of the media who broaches the subject.

Walz goes on the offensive, saying nobody should ever denigrate a person’s military service. Nobody has criticized Walz’s twenty-four-year career in the Guard. He served honorably in that time. People, including men from his platoon, have a problem with the manner in which he retired and the lie about his rank and activity. Walz cannot defend his lies. He got caught, and he owns it. Walz is having many people defend his timeline for retirement, but he is deflecting. His retirement is an issue because he went around his immediate superior so his platoon would not know his intentions. The problem is the lie and the fumbled attempt to explain it. No explanation will erase the error.

Politicians are human and will make mistakes. We need to be empathetic to that, but telling lies about one’s history or background is not a mistake. Lying is an intentional attempt to defraud, and to do so should have severe ramifications. We have the right to expect higher standards from the people we choose to lead us, and elected officials should hold themselves to higher standards, too. Should Tim Walz drop out of the race because of what he said? Probably not, but he should own it. He must stop the excuse approach, apologize to all Americans, and never do it again.