There Is Something Really Demented About Tim Walz’s Lying

David Harsanyi Visit on Twitter @davidharsanyi

Have you noticed that “gaffe-“prone vice presidential candidate Tim Walz misspeaks quite a bit, tends to use “sloppy” rhetoric, and is regularly compelled to “clarify” his statements? Really, Walz lies a lot. Yet, a political press that not very long ago featured “lie counters” on chyrons for Donald Trump is awash in euphemisms to cover for Walz’s deceptions.

It’s one thing to exaggerate your political accomplishments or lie about your political opponents. Walz isn’t the first politician to spin some fiction about a drunk driving arrest. All in the game.

Lying about serving in war, on the other hand, is a shameful appropriation of bravery and honor. Years ago, it was unlikely a candidate could recover from the indignity of misleading the public about his military service. Today, apparently, it’s no big deal. Walz, picked by Kamala Harris two weeks ago as a running mate, won’t even answer any genuine questions about his history of misleading voters.

And make no mistake, Walz isn’t being “accused” of lying by the GOP, as so many in the press contend. He’s been caught on tape. Indeed, Walz, who also often misrepresented his rank, spent years — at best — allowing voters to believe he’d courageously gone off to Iraq or Afghanistan when in fact he was in Italy, and then avoided deployment to enter politics.

Lying about fighting in a war is unethical and dishonorable. It’s nothing new. Lying about how your children were conceived to score some cheap political points is sort of demented.

“Thank God for IVF. My wife and I have two beautiful children,” Walz told MSNBC not long ago. In April, Walz sent out a fund-raising letter that claimed: “My wife and I used I.V.F. to start a family.’’

Walz’s claim that his family used in vitro fertilization to conceive was not some throwaway line. The IVF scaremongering is a central issue for Democrats. Numerous speakers at the DNC have warned that Donald Trump wants to ban IVF, an accusation that has no basis in reality.