One of the attacks that has legitimately been thrown at Trump for years is that he has a low, ugly character, and certainly there are plenty of things he’s done and said that support that argument. Looking at his kids and grandkids, who all seem to be well adjusted, suggests otherwise, but there we are.
In any case I’m struggling to think of politicians with good character and regrettably the ones I can think of never seemed to do well in the trade, quitting after failing to achieve the goals they entered politics to achieve, or being destroyed anyway.
And then there are those whose characters are transformed into being good merely because of the political ideology they preach and practice – and they are almost always Left-Wingers. In the US Barack Obama is the supreme example, although Bill Clinton held the status for a long time.
Understand that this runs on the same spectrum where the likes of Stalin, Mao and other communists reside on the Far Left and are respected to this day by a fringe Left.
Of this year’s US politicians the one that most obviously fits this is the Democrat VP nominee, Tim Walz. Kamala Harris will get that same positive treatment but the problem with her is that she hasn’t actually done anything policy-wise in her political career, partly because the positions she’s held largely aren’t designed to deliver policy but also because she’s a weightless wonder who has failed up.
By contrast Walz, courtesy of being the Governor of Minnesota, has got a Left-Wing things done and thus is being extolled as a good man and an excellent politician. Nothing the GOP can do about that framing as they attack him.
But aside from very left-wing policies he has another huge weak point in that, unlike most politicians, he’s a very poor liar, saying things which he surely must know he can be caught out on, and has been! One of two major reasons for this is that Walz is a talker; he flaps his gums at an incredible rate and so ends up saying stuff just because it sounds good. Who cares if it’s accurate?
The other major reason for his casual lying is that he has gotten away with this for years is that he has had total air cover from the local MSM, starting with the Minnesota Star Tribune, which is now being run by one of his former lackeys and is actually pulling shit like the following, done just the other day:
I also loved this on-the-record comment from Walz back in early July when he met with “President” Biden in the wake of the latter’s hideous debate with Trump:
Yes, he’s fit for office….None of us are denying Thursday night was a bad performance. It was a bad get [?], if you will on that. But it doesn’t impact what I believe — he’s delivering.
TBF to Walz, that’s little different to all the other Democrats who had to say much the same thing in public. But even here it’s the casualness of the lying that is special. Even as he knew he was lying. Even as he knew that we knew he was lying.
At the moment the main distraction for him, and the Harris campaign, is his departure from the Minnesota National Guard in early 2005, after 24 years of service, just before the unit was deployed to Iraq, and his subsequent shadings of the truth over the years since then. The Minnesota Star Tribune strikes again, continuing to perform the role they have for Walz for years.
Another media outlet, one of the newer ones, reported on the story with “whether his comments qualify as “stolen valor” is in the eye of the beholder.” That’s The Free Press, touted by DPF over at Kiwiblog as being willing to take a crack at both the Democrats and the GOP.
How refreshing. Actually it sounds like they’re soft-soaping in little different fashion than the Tribune and in exactly the way they wouldn’t for a Republican in a similar situation. I well recall how the military service of GHW Bush and John McCain were treated by the MSM during their runs for office, and GW’s National Guard service used as an attempt to destroy him in 2004.
And in this case the “beholders” were the soldiers in Walz’s National Guard unit, who fully expected him to lead them into Iraq as their senior NCO, so it means something much more than just the usual political attack. Moreover this is not something they’re just bringing up now. They tried raising all this when he first ran for Congress back in 2006 and were promptly stiffed by the MSM, first and foremost by the Minnesota Star Tribune, as documented by the Powerline boys, who are imminently familiar with Walz given that two of them live in the state:
- On Walz’s case: including 2009 video where one of those vets actually confronts Walz’s staff about the BS press releases to get them corrected, “a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” and so forth.
- That vet is one John Thul, and in this 2009 blog post he explained in detail the multiple exaggerations of his service that Walz had done to that point.
- The commanding officer of the National Guard battalion in which Walz served issued a brutal takedown of Walz.
- In fact three command sergeant majors (CSM) from Walz’s unit said several years ago that Walz went up two levels of command to get his retirement. One of them, Doug Julin, bluntly said “He went around my authority to get out of the position. I probably would have told him ‘No, you’re going on the deployment.’“
- And now even the unit’s Chaplain has spoke up:
Capt. Corey Bjertness (Ret.), recently told the New York Post, “In our world, to drop out after a WARNORD [warning order] is issued is cowardly, especially for a senior enlisted guy…Running for Congress is not an excuse. I stopped everything and went to war. I left my wife with three teenagers and a 6-year-old, and I was gone for 19 months”
The former chaplain, now a pastor in North Dakota, said that while Walz deserves commendation for serving 24 years in the Guard, “the other allegations, which the National Guard members I have visited with believe to be absolutely true, make me believe we have yet another politician who has a very loose commitment to the truth.” - Mackubin T. Owens, a Vietnam Vet and retired professor from the Naval War College, went into detail on exactly how Walz pulled off his “retirement” to avoid Iraq. I especially appreciated these comments:
“During the 2004 campaign, Kerry tried to intimidate those who criticized his disgraceful 1971 testimony: any criticism of him was an attack on all veterans. That is what Walz and his people are doing today: treating any criticism of his behavior at the end of his time in the National Guard as criticism of his honorable service and therefore of veterans in general.
…
Some have accused Walz of “cowardice” and “treason” which is nonsense. But the fact is that by placing his personal interest above loyalty to his soldiers, he revealed a serious character flaw.”
Walz has either lied about or allowed people to believe untruths about multiple aspects of this event, not just one: his rank; when he knew of the deployment (late 2004); how he retired; being part of Operation Enduring Freedom (him holding the sign at a protest, see John Thul’s 2009 post).
I don’t think it’s fair that (Walz) takes credit when he didn’t step up to the plate. Walz claims a rank he never earned. When he was called to serve, and protect our country he didn’t. To publicly present false prestige of his unearned rank an inaccurate representation, is a falsehood of who he truly is.
My son stepped up to the plate. All our sons stepped up. My son wasn’t even 21 years old. He couldn’t even buy alcohol. Yet he took the step to serve our country while Walz found the best way to run away.’
It was the coward’s way out.
As Powerline say of that last one:
Remember when the press made a heroine out of Cindy Sheehan, who criticized President George Bush because her son, like Kathy Miller’s, died in Iraq? What do you think the chances are that Miller will get equal attention, let alone the virtual deification that Sheehan enjoyed as long as she was useful?
No Minister 
Just a thoroughly unlikeable individual.