Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is in trouble. He had been busted for embellishing his military record, claiming to serve in wars he hadn’t, and retiring with a rank he did not officially obtain. Walz is being accused of stolen valor, a vulnerability that could haunt Democrats. It might be something that could derail him from the ticket, though I’m not holding my breath on that one. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes delivered a full-throated defense of Walz's military record, which Newsbusters transcribed last night. Can you catch the issue? Hayes glossed over the issues that’s led to Walz coming under intense scrutiny (via Newsbusters) [emphasis mine]:
MSNBC's Chris Hayes desperately tries to firefight for Tim Walz and his embellished service pic.twitter.com/6Mg7lmHTgf
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) August 8, 2024
CHRIS HAYES: But there's an experience that is even rarer among the tiny fraction of Americans who enlist, a much smaller share make a career of it, serving 20 years or more with multiple, multiple deployments. Only a tiny fraction of those thought to stay in the service after being disabled on the job, and one of them is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. An enlisted soldier in the National Guard for nearly a quarter of a century, a journey that began on a Nebraska farm as soon as he was eligible to join.
TIM WALZ: My father served during the Korean War and the day after I turned 17, he took me down to an Army National Guard recruiter and I raised my hand and signed up.
HAYES: That was in 1981. Ronald Reagan was president. Now Walz continued to serve for the next 24 years, under four Commanders-in-Chief. He spent most of that time as an artillery soldier, and it took a toll on his hearing. In fact, in 2002 after he'd already done 20 years he qualified for retirement. A medical board considered discharging him because of his hearing impairment. Instead he convinced them to let him complete his final enlistment, which began after 9/11. Walz achieved the highest enlisted rank in the army, Command Sergeant Major, but rather than stay in and complete the schooling for the rank, Walz retired in 2005 at the rank of Master Sergeant. In part, he says, because he wanted at that point to speak freely about political injustice, specifically, the Iraq war. The following year, he was one of more than 60 anti war veterans running for Congress, the Fighting Dems, a group that included Jim Webb, Patrick Murphy and Tammy Duckworth.
One has to laugh at the prospect of Acela Media elite now pretending to care about service members generally, and about the arcane details of promotions and billeting, and E-9 command splits specifically. The fact is that they don’t, but must pretend to do so in order to defend the Regime and its new prospective deputy figurehead.
Nothing in Hayes’ four minute-plus segment addressed the specific claims made against Walz, or debunked any of what is already on the record. At most, Hayes presents an alternate version of events, without evidence: that of the brave dissident sacrificing promotion in order to fight “political injustice”, as opposed to the man who ditched his unit in order to avoid deployment to Iraq.
Also, Chris Hayes isn’t the best person to discuss military records, veterans, or service. In 2012, the liberal host was forced to apologize for saying he was uncomfortable calling fallen soldiers “heroes,” and he said this on Memorial Day (via Politico):
MSNBC host Chris Hayes apologized … for saying he felt “uncomfortable” calling fallen soldiers “heroes," a remark that set off a firestorm of criticism over the Memorial Day weekend.
"… in discussing the uses of the word "hero" to describe those members of the armed forces who have given their lives, I don't think I lived up to the standards of rigor, respect and empathy for those affected by the issues we discuss that I've set for myself," Hayes wrote on MSNBC.com. "I am deeply sorry for that."
Critics at right-wing sites like Breitbart.com and Newsbusters had criticized Hayes heavily for his comments, suggesting they were disrespectful of America's men and women in uniform.
“Why do I feel so uncomfortable about the word ‘hero’?” Hayes had said on Sunday's edition of Up With Chris Hayes. “I feel uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect the memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism -- hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that."
In his statement… Hayes also expressed regret for having reinforced and confirmed the stereotype of the "removed pundit."
There’s no spin here, liberal media. Walz lied, bolting from his National Guard unit before they got deployed to Iraq in 2005. And now, we find out his record is fraught with lies. Who vetted this guy?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member