What Are We To Make Of Tim Walz?

For now, I don't know what to do with the information overload that's the DNC. I have an inchoate impression that there's no real plan for the campaign, and there are lots of signs that nobody competent is in charge, and we'll have to see how things shake out. But in the meantime, I want to focus on Tim Walz.

For instance, what about whether he was really vetted? The best indication I can see is this:

🚨 BREAKING: I just confronted Eric Holder about why he didn’t vet Tim Walz over his Stolen Valor

Holder: “F*CK YOU!!!” pic.twitter.com/6j1gzdkW2P

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 21, 2024

It's hard to avoid thinking that if Holder is so determined to run away from questions about whether he vetted Walz, he may regret his role, or at least the public perception of it. Via Breitbart,

According to the Associated Press, the process — managed by Holder — took 16 days, and ended with Walz being chosen. Since Walz was selected, he has been plagued by lies he told about his military service, forcing the Harris-Walz campaign to address one of them.

More complete accounts that I've seen say Holder headed a larger group of Obama alumni who came up with a short list consisting of Arizona Sen Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov Josh Shapiro, and Walz. I reviewed what we know about the selection process in detail in this post.

The current consensus seems to be that Kamala went with her gut and chose Walz based on vibes, or something like that, although Shapiro's version suggests that he had serious second thoughts after his final interview with Kamala. Did he maybe think she was drunk?

Walz's latest comtroversy involves IVF:

In this case, he has been saying for months that he and his wife used IVF to have kids. He's been saying this, not coincidentally, just as the Democratic Party has been trying to turn conservative opposition to IVF into another winning campaign issue.

. . . Except, Walz and his wife never used IVF. They used a different procedure, one that does not involve the fertilization of embryos outside the body. It's an important distinction because a) that's literally what IVF means (in vitro means in glass) and b) no one opposed the treatment the Walz's actually used.

Walz's wife, Gwen,

clarified in a statement to CNN that she did not use in vitro fertilization to conceive, sharing new details about her and Gov. Tim Walz’s fertility struggles as the governor has highlighted their experience with infertility on the campaign trail.

. . . Intrauterine insemination, like IVF, is a common fertility procedure used by couples trying to conceive. But anti-abortion groups have pushed state officials to restrict IVF — when an egg is removed from a person’s body and combined with sperm inside a lab before being implanted.

However, no accounts I've seen of the controversy as it applies to the Walzes explain the specfic moral problem with IVF, although there are additional reasons the Catholic Church opposes it: during the process of fertilization in the lab, multiple eggs are harvested and fertilized, which can lead to multiple viable embryos. One or more of these can be selected and placed in the mother's womb, which means that other viable embryos aren't selected, and this is morally an abortion. For that matter, even if multiple embryos are implanted in the mother, some of these may also be aborted later in the IVF process.

For Walz to defend this process is questionable in itself. However, the overall issue of reproductive freedom has entered the vice presidential race:

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear sparked an outcry on Tuesday when he appeared to suggest GOP vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, should experience a rape-induced pregnancy.

. . . Beshear targeted what he called "extreme" abortion laws that have been enacted in various red states following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe V. Wade in 2022, and slammed the GOP's attacks that Democratic lawmakers support abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

. . . Vance blasted Beshear’s words on X, stating, "What the hell is this? Why is @AndyBeshearKY wishing that a member of my family would get raped?!? What a disgusting person."

For now, the subliminal effect of the controversy deflects attention from the Democrat claim to support reproductive freedom and redirects it, first, to Walz's repeated pattern of embroidering his life story, and second, to Beshear's out-of-line rhetoric. The bottom line is that in yet another critical line of attack against Trump, Walz weakens it, but then, so does Beshear.

But overall, it seems like there's a growing public impression that Walz is a buffoon. His oafish grin doesn't help at all. And we've still got the question of whether Obama in particular, in this case via Eric Holder in maybe deliberately omitting to vet Walz, is setting Kamala up to fail.