As if it were not enough that in the roughly three weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, The New York Times ran a few dozen articles about what appeared to be every aspect of the background of the nationally unknown Walz. It almost seemed that The New York Times was not going to waste one moment in transforming him into a household name in the short time before he would go before the voters in November.
But the other day, The New York Times went full bore and left no doubt that it was not interested in merely reporting on Candidate Walz, but also in defending him to voters.
As has been widely reported, Mr. Walz has been roundly criticized for breaking faith with members of his National Guard unit when he retired after being informed that they were to be deployed to Iraq. He has also been attacked for misrepresenting that he saw combat. As to the latter, he said he supported “common sense legislation” designed to “make sure those weapons of war that I carried in war are only carried in war.” However, as it turns out, he never actually saw combat.
Pretty damning revelations and Walz, was quickly put on the defensive. But not to worry. The New York Times has come to the rescue.
Here are some quotes from an article in Saturday’s New York Times that took up three-quarters of a page and was headlined, “Veterans Say Political Fight Over Service Is A Turnoff: Many Recoil At Attacks On Walz’s Military Years.”
According to The New York Times, “Many veterans, including undecided and conservative voters, said this week that they saw the sniping over Mr. Walz’s service as harmful to all veterans, in and out of the political arena.”
The New York Times then goes on to quote a total of three veterans respectively as follows: “’Name-calling, talking about people’s record, like, that’s not helpful,’ said Vince Young, 32, a former Marine Corps mortarman and undecided voter who lives in Charlotte, N.C. He said his main concern was the economy, and that seeing one veteran disparaging another turned him off. ‘I think it’s not really beneficial to anyone. I want to hear, what are you going to do?’”
“It’s frustrating to see both candidates belittle one another’s service, said Elizabeth Hartman, 33, the commander of an American Legion post in New Bern, N.C., and a former Arab linguist in the Marine Corps who considers herself a conservative. ‘Because at the end of the day, both candidates did something that less than one percent of the population will ever have the courage to do.’ Like Mr. Young, Ms. Hartman said she wanted the candidates to focus on current issues, like immigration, instead.” [Editor’s Note: Trump running mate Sen. JD Vance’s military record has been criticized by Democrats over his not having served in a combat role, although he never misrepresented that he had.]
The New York Times then cites, but does not directly quote, Paul Rieckhoff, a former infantry officer: “Mr. Rieckhoff said he thought the criticism of Mr. Walz was unfounded, and that Mr. Walz probably achieved more for troops and veterans by serving in Congress – where he championed education and mental health resource for veterans – than one sergeant major [Walz’s rank] could have on a deployment in Iraq.”
So, there you have it. A headline that suggests that “veterans” as a group pooh poohs criticisms that Candidate Walz’s misrepresentations of his military service is supported only anecdotally and, to boot, by but three veterans who do not even deny the misrepresentations – only assert that it is no big deal in the larger scheme of things.
In fact, to the contrary, The New York Times notes in the article that the charges against Walz “have been repeated by prominent Republicans who are veterans, including 50 members of Congress who signed a letter…claiming that Mr. Walz had lied and had ‘violated the trust of other veterans.’”
It’s hard to reconcile all of this with objective, unbiased reporting. In fact, it seems to us as pure editorializing in the guise of reporting. The likelihood that this sort of thing will recur in the run-up to November 5 is great. We hope trust that those who rely on The New York Times for their news take due notice.
