I actually laughed out loud reading Politico’s “Walz says he ‘speaks like everybody else.’ And it’s not working for the campaign.” representative excerpts:

• “’Any time you are forced to go off message is never welcome,” said Mike Mikus, a Democratic strategist in Pennsylvania. ‘But in the end, voters are looking for somebody who is more concerned about what these candidates are going to do to improve their lives than, ‘Did he get every single fact correct?’”

That was the one that got me  laughing. It is exactly the argument Trump defenders have been making for years, to the sneers of the Left.  How dare any Democrat resort to it?

• “Yeah, look, I have my dates wrong,” Walz told reporters in Harrisburg. “I was in Hong Kong in China in 1989. … I speak like everybody else speaks. I need to be clearer.”

Another Trump defender line: “He speaks like normal people.”

“I have my dates wrong” is another lie, and obviously so. The issue isn’t the date, but the memorable event. If someone falsely says he was in Manhattan when the Twin Towers came down and he wasn’t, it wasn’t because he had the date wrong. ‘Hey, I was there when they crucified Jesus!’ ‘No you weren’t.’ “Oh. I guess I had my dates wrong.’

• “Candidates running for higher office have long embellished their records or personal histories. President Joe Biden had long been known to overstate even minor details of his personal life, like his academic achievements. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in 2010 had to explain why he misstated his military record when he claimed he served in Vietnam when he in fact served in the Marine Corps Reserves during the Vietnam War — but stateside. Former Rep. George Santos is well known for lying about a number of things, including that his mother was killed in the 9/11 attacks.”

And there is Politico, defaulting to “everybody does it.” When Trump does it, of course, it’s different. Besides, Walz was only guilty of “misrepresentations” and “misspeaking.” Trump lies.

• “Walz’s misstatements could contradict the image that the campaign has painted of him as an upstanding, everyday Midwest guy.”

Gee, ya think? Again, the Harris-Walz ticket is the phoniest one in American history. I believe that the VP debate has had more impact than the rest because it lifted the clouds from a lot of voters’ eyes.

• “Harris’ circle, for example, knew of Walz’s 1995 DUI arrest when he was a school teacher in Nebraska, despite Walz’s past campaign and official staff trying to downplay and in some cases outright mislead reporters about the circumstances of the arrest.”

But Trump is an existential threat to democracy because he lies all the time!

• “’As the governor has said, he sometimes misspeaks. He speaks like a normal person and speaks passionately about issues he cares deeply about including democracy and stopping gun violence in our school,’ a spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign said, adding Trump and Vance ‘repeatedly lie and mislead about their plan to ban abortion nationwide’ and other topics.”

Isn’t that terrific? Lying in the course of defending a lie: There is no “plan to ban abortions.” This is, however, a Democrat Big Lie talking point that shows up in attack ads in Senate, House and state house races across the country. Larry Hogan, the pandering pseudo-conservative ex-Maryland GOP governor running for U.S. Senator has  been careful to kowtow to the state’s pro-abortion fanatics, but never mind: his Democratic opponent says he’ll help Republicans “get between a woman and her doctor.”

That’s enough to give you a sense of Politico’s double standards and obvious lack of integrity. Talk about a willful lack of self-awareness, not to mention an astounding absence of shame.