It’s not enough that Kamala Harris deliberately placed on the ballot to be elected one heartbeat from the Presidency a Democratic governor , Tim Walz, who has been lying about his military combat record for more than 20 years. (Well, that was just “bad grammar”…). Nor that Richard Blumenthal, the senior United States Senator from Connecticut, also a Democrat, was cheerfully elected by Connecticut voters in 2010 (and re-elected in 2016 and 2022) despite repeatedly lying about being a Vietnam war veteran. For “Wait, there’s more!”…Wes Moore to be precise, the Democratic governor of Maryland.
Moore, shown above as he gave a highlighted speech for the Harris-Walz ticket at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (he did not have a piece of the application for a prestigious White House fellowship in which he lied about receiving a Bronze Star hovering over his head, though) has been dispatched by the Harris campaign as a surrogate to defend Walz on cable television! What a good choice! After all, who better to try to rationalize lying about military service than someone who has done it himself!
In an interview on this week, Moore said the Bronze Star description had been “an honest mistake.” How can that be an honest mistake? Getting that honor is a major life achievement (my father had a Bronze Star to go with his Silver Star, and wore the bars on his suit jackets every day of his working life thereafter.) I think I like Walz’s “bad grammar” excuse better than the “honest mistake” excuse, even though Walz also crows about being a school teacher (who doesn’t understand grammar?)
Moore’s other excuse for claiming to have received a medal he had not is “I forgot.”
It seems that the “mistake” began when his commanding officer advised him to claim that he had the Bronze Star because the officer was certain Moore would eventually get the Bronze Star. Now that could be called a grammar problem: Moore got his present and future tenses mixed up. As for that commanding officer, with ethics like that I’m surprised he isn’t a Democratic governor by now.
Moore is really something. He has repeatedly called himself a Baltimore native despite being born in the Washington suburbs and being raised largely in the Bronx. He did not correct a 2006 interviewer who said he had been inducted into the Maryland Football Hall of Fame, which does not exist. Moore said this week, “You know, if there’s one thing that people know about me, it is that I’m a person of integrity.”
Wait, Inigo Montoya is screaming at me…okay, okay! You’re on!
Here’s a gift link to the Times story to get you past the pay wall.
Ethics Alarms 
For many there appears to be a substantial misunderstanding about virtue and virtue signaling. They seem to believe just signaling is all that is required to be virtuous, even after being informed of or exposed to the clear differences.
Seems to me you know you got the Bronze Star when it is pinned on you. I don’t believe they simply send it to you in the mail. Even Publishers Clearinghouse knocks on the winners door. This is like being a finalist in a contest and then telling everyone that you won.
That’s exactly what it is like. And saying you won something you haven’t won is a “mistake” like trying to rob a 7-11 when a cop is buying a hotdog is a “mistake.”
Wait. “The Director of Information Operations” was supposed to get a Bronze Star for … doing PR work? What the fuck? My brother’s father-in-law received a Bronze Star for jumping out of the disabled tank he was commanding with the machine gun mounted on its turret and, as my brother said, “going all Audie Murphy” on a nearby German machine gun nest. And I’d have never known about what Bruce, the father-in-law had done had my brother not showed me the plaque and told me the story. Bruce didn’t even contextualize anything. I never even knew Bruce was a vet. He was just a former station manager for Pan Am in Nicaragua who ran his own travel agency and hired me to paint his house. These guys like Moore and Walz cheapen heroism. Did Moore really expect to be given a Bronze Star for being a rear echelon mother fucker?
Apparently. That’s what you get medals for now, I guess. Participation.
Apparently, that’s about right in recent history. Seems that officers in Iraq, even in non-combat roles, got “meritorious service” bronze stars (not with the V, for valor) if they managed to not set their desks on fire. That’s what Beau Biden got. It looks like Timmy Walz, not being an officer, would not have gotten even that, had he actually made it out of Italy.
Holy Cow! That’s incredible. Non-combatants get Bronze Stars??? For completing their tour? By the way, I may have made a mistake. I think my brother’s father-in-law actually got a Silver Star.