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August 12, 2024

Tim Walz’s military service—a blatant lie and a ‘yada-yada’ lie

By Andrea Widburg

The Harris-Walz campaign and the Democrat party’s praetorian guard (aka the media) are pushing back against the multiple instances when Tim Walz lied about his military record. No one disputes that he served in the National Guard for over two decades. However, he’s made political hay for almost as long about two lies: The first is that he retired with the rank of Command Sergeant Major, and the second is that he saw combat in Afghanistan or Iraq (he tends to blur the two). It’s easy to rebut Walz’s lie about rank, and a little Seinfeldian knowledge can spotlight his lie about serving in combat.

Since he retired from the National Guard, Tim Walz has consistently claimed that he retired with the rank of Command Sergeant Major. The problem with this claim is that, while Walz technically retired with the rank of Command Sergeant Major, that was a temporary rank contingent on his remaining in the National Guard. Because Walz retired from the Guard on the eve of his unit’s being sent to Iraq, the Guard officially pulled the rank, making him only a Sergeant Major.

Because this lie is so obvious, the Harris campaign has had to address it. Per Politico, the “Harris campaign tweaks Walz biography amid scrutiny of military credentials.” I like the word “tweaks,” as if this is a stylistic problem rather than deleting a blatant lie:

On its website, the Harris campaign axed a reference to Walz as a “retired command sergeant major” and now says that he once served at the command sergeant major rank — a small change that nonetheless reflects his true rank at retirement from the Army National Guard. Walz, the governor of Minnesota, served for 24 years in the National Guard before retiring in 2005 from the military to run for the U.S. House, where he became the most senior enlisted soldier to serve in Congress.

Still, the campaign can’t hide from the myriad instances in which Walz faked his rank:

This one, though, is my favorite ‘cause it’s all in congressional gold and blue:

This is one lie Democrats can’t run away from, so it needs to be hammered home.

The second lie—which sees Walz consistently imply that he served overseas, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq—is a more subtle one. Here’s a perfect example:

Sentence One: I was in the National Guard.

Sentence Two: I was in an airbase in Iraq.

The strong implication here is that Walz was at the airbase in his capacity as an NCO in the National Guard. In fact, he probably was at an airbase, but that would have been when he went on a congressional junket, such as this one.

What Walz should have included between his first and second sentences was what happened between those two life events, e.g., “I withdrew from the National Guard and was elected to Congress. During that time...”

Those missing sentences are what we in the legal world call a “lie or fraud by omission.” Leaving out important information is just as bad as affirmatively lying. Walz has done this whenever he could; that is, he has subtly implied by leaving out relevant facts that he served in a combat zone.

Legal language, though, is boring. The better way to describe what Walz does when speaking about his military service or lack thereof is the “yada yada” lie. A generation of Seinfeld lovers know what I mean by that.

In the episode entitled “The Yada Yada,” George begins dating Marcy, a woman who likes to say “yada yada yada” to shorten what she implies are long stories, enabling her to go from the introduction to the conclusion without dwelling on the middle part. George eventually learns that her “yada yada yada” is a way of skipping over ugly truths:

 

Walz has very consistently told yada-yada lies about his military service. He’s done this to justify destroying the Second Amendment or to boost his status by pretending that he’s a member of America’s true warrior class rather than a guy who left the military the moment word came down that his unit would be deployed.

 

The praetorian media will insistently focus on the fact that Walz left the Guard before this deployment, but the media are engaging in their own yada-yada omission. That omitted fact is that Walz knew about the impending departure before the official word came down and before he left the Guard.

What Walz has done is shameful, and no one should let the media’s praetorian guard hide the truth behind those yada-yada lies.

Image: YouTube screen grab (edited).

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