While the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC have continued to treat Vice President Kamala Harris to North Korean-like fawning coverage by excusing her lack of policy specifics (and zero criticisms of the ones she’s offered) and sneering attacks on former President Trump, they’ve chosen to leave behind substantive scandals about Harris and her running mate, far-left Governor Tim Walz (D-MN). Such was the case Thursday night and Friday morning with two on Walz.
First, there was this story that Good Morning America and World News Tonight made the decision to hide from their viewers courtesy of....their own website, ABCNews.com.
Olivia Rubin and Will Steaks had a nearly 2,000-word story starting the obvious: “Tim Walz previously faced criticism over the way he characterized his military service, records show”.
Instead of getting credit for this work on one of the flagship network newscasts, Rubin was buried with a one-minute-and-45-second discussion during the 6:00 p.m. Eastern hour of ABC News Live.
Rubin summarized the work she did with Steaks as having combed “through a ton of old material for Governor Walz” and found “that repeatedly his lengthy 24-year service with the National Guard has been mischaracterized at times” by Walz himself, his campaign, supporters, and voters.
She only had time to cite two examples with one having been a 2016 C-SPAN interview in which he was “introduced on television as having served in Afghanistan and he sort of nods along to that, even though he did not serve there.” The other, she noted, were murky characterizations of Walz’s record on campaign websites.
While much of the network coverage that has made it to air attempted to oversimplify questions about Walz’s service to a single clip of him discussing guns he carried “in war”, even these liberal journalists conceded there was more to it (click “expand”):
In early 2016, Tim Walz sat down with CSPAN for a bipartisan discussion about his opposition to President Barack Obama’s push to reduce troop levels overseas. To begin the panel, the host introduced Walz -- at the time in his fifth term as a U.S. representative -- in part by incorrectly outlining his military service.
“Enlisted in the Army National Guard at 17 and retired 24 years later as Command Sergeant Major,” she said of Walz, “and served with his battalion in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.”
Walz nodded in agreement at that statement, despite the fact that -- according to military records and his own admission -- although he served in Operation Enduring Freedom in Italy, he never served in Afghanistan.
(....)
Thomas Behrends, who took over as command sergeant major of Walz’s battalion after Walz retired from military service in 2005, has been a vocal Walz critic for years, accusing him of using a false rank after retiring and criticizing his decision to retire before his battalion was deployed to Iraq.
“At the point when he quit, the balloon was deflated and all the soldiers out here, basically it was like one of their main senior leaders had died. They couldn’t believe it,” Behrends said in an interview with ABC News.
(....)
Walz appears to have been aware prior to his retirement that his unit was under consideration for deployment. Shortly after announcing his first run for Congress in March 2005, Walz issued a statement saying his unit had been notified of a “possible partial mobilization,” stating that he had a “responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on.”
“On Thursday, March 17 the National Guard Public Affairs Office announced a possible partial mobilization of roughly 2,000 troops from the Minnesota National Guard,” Walz posted to his campaign website in 2005, according to a version viewed by ABC News via the Wayback Machine.
“I do not yet know if my artillery unit will be part of this mobilization and I am unable to comment further on specifics of the deployment,” Walz posted on the site. “As Command Sergeant Major I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on. I am dedicated to serving my country to the best of my ability, whether that is in Washington DC or in Iraq.”
Walz also stated he intended to remain in the race even if he were to be deployed.
(....)
In the National Guard, Walz began serving as command sergeant major, a leadership position, in 2004, and was officially appointed to the role in April 2005, shortly before he retired from service, according to National Guard records confirmed by ABC News. However Walz did not remain in the role long enough to keep the title in retirement.
Still, Walz repeatedly referred to himself as a “retired command sergeant major” for years.
In 2016, Behrends penned a private letter to Walz, thanking him for his service but imploring him to stop using the title, which he said Walz didn’t earn.
“It saddens me that after your long career in the National Guard, that you did not fulfill the conditions of your promotion to Command Sergeant Major,” said the letter, a copy of which was provided to ABC News. “It’s quite a title to have, when it has been earned. I would hope that you haven’t been using the rank for political gain, but that is how it appears.”
A former battalion commander of Walz’s National Guard unit also issued a scathing rebuke of the way the Minnesota governor has described his military rank since retiring and entering politics, writing on Facebook that Walz “did not earn the rank or successfully complete any assignment as an E9,” referring to the governor’s repeated use of the title.
“It is an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps that he continues to glom onto the title. I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, it does not make me a pilot. Similarly, when the demands of service and leadership at the highest level got real, he chose another path,” wrote John Kolb, who became lieutenant colonel of his Minnesota unit shortly after Walz retired and launched his bid for Congress.
(....)
On his congressional campaign website in September 2005, according to the Wayback Machine, Walz is described as “Command Sergeant Major Walz,” who retired after serving “overseas with his battalion in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.” While correct, the website does not specify that Walz deployed to Italy, rather than to Iraq or Afghanistan where he may have faced combat.
(....)
“Tim Walz is misleading us about his military service,” wrote one person in the Winona Daily News in November 2006. “As Minnesota military reservists who served in Iraq, we are disappointed.”
The writer said that Walz served “honorably,” but claimed that through “artful omission, Walz is leaving the impression that he served in the combat zones.”
In another latter to the Albert Lea Tribune, the writer said, “I also feel misled about Tim Walz’s military service.”
That writer pointed to “pictures he has on his Web site that make it look like he was in combat” as well as “links to articles such as ‘War veterans for office’ in which he was featured.”
The other story came from CNN’s K-File team concerning Walz’s 1995 DUI arrest in Nebraska and some bald-faced lies by his campaigns trying to minimize the serious charge.
Even though it was posted Thursday morning, it took until Erin Burnett OutFront (with Sara Sidner filling in as host) for K-File editor Andrew Kaczynski to surface and discuss it.
Kaczynski first explained to viewers the facts from 1995 (since it’s doubtful CNN’s far-left audience had ever heard of this) that “Walz was speeding over 95 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone,” “failed a field sobriety tests that was administered by a state trooper,” “ admitted in court that he had been drinking,” and went to a hospital for blood testing to show he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.128.
Then, he added, Walz “took a plea deal where he pled guilty to a reckless driving charge”, but instead of owning up to it, his successful 2006 congressional campaign offered a litany of lies about what transpired, including a false claim that “hearing loss” from his National Guard service was why he failed the field sobriety test and he was allowed to drive home that night (click “expand”):
Now, I’m going to give you the bullets of what his campaigns said about that. They the campaign setting Walz claimed that he had not been drinking and driving. They attributed his failed field sobriety test to hearing loss from his time in the night National Guard, not alcohol that came campaign falsely said that he drove himself to the station, that he was allowed to drive home. They said they said the DUI charges were dropped because they were unfounded and the campaign even faulted this trooper for it saying that he didn’t realize that Walz had hearing impairment they claimed a judge actually chastised the state trooper for it. Now, take a look at just one statement that his campaign put out. They said, he, quote, couldn’t understand what the trooper was telling him during the field sobriety test and the trooper refused to speak up. The DUI charges were dropped for a reason, the judge would not have dismissed them if there were anything to them. Tim drove to the station that night and drove home afterwards. I don’t think the trooper would have allowed that if there had been a problem. So, none of what they said in that 2006 race was true at all. As we saw and just looking at those details of the 1995 arrest.
Of course, Kaczynski concluded with the Harris-Walz campaign declining to comment.
If the shoe were on the other foot and this happened to GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance, not only would CNN have had Kaczynski on-air sooner, but repeatedly and picked up by ABC, CBS, and NBC.
Instead, because Trump is the one who embellishes and gets fact-checked into oblivion, these lies by Walz aren’t that important.
To see the relevant transcripts from August 15, click here (for ABC) and here (for CNN).
