On Sunday, Dustin Grage, a columnist for the conservative website Townhall and a Republican strategist who describes himself as a “Minnesota G.O.P. hype man,” posted on X a clip from a 2012 speech by Tim Walz to the American Legion. In the clip, Walz says: “When I was in Afghanistan, you know what our troops were worried about? They were worried about their family’s health care, and they were worried about their pensions.”
Grage’s post said Walz claiming he was in Afghanistan was “another example of Stolen Valor.”
But Walz did, in fact, visit Afghanistan and speak with troops as part of a congressional delegation in 2008. Grage concedes as much in a “note” that was later appended to the post, complaining that Walz didn’t “specify” that he was referring to “the trip four years prior.”
But Grage didn’t remove the “stolen valor” post, which has been viewed more than 340,000 times. The note, on the other hand, has been viewed only about 4,000 times. This differential is how misinformation spreads.
Some legitimate questions have arisen about statements that Walz made about his service, but four veterans who specialize in investigating cases of deception about service told The New York Times last month that “they do not believe Mr. Walz engaged in stolen valor, but that he did misrepresent his record at times or, at the very least, has not always been precise.”
The “stolen valor” claim isn’t true, and it isn’t sticking, but that hasn’t stopped conservatives from using it. They will try anything that they think might shift the narrative.
We have entered the scrounging-for-scandals stage of the presidential race. The battle is asymmetrical. Donald Trump is plagued by so many scandals that they start to blend together and people become numb to them, while videos keep emerging of his running mate, JD Vance, repeatedly vilifying people, particularly women, for not having children.
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