Walz Gets the 'Swift Boat' Treatment

JD Vance appears to have settled on a line of attack against his rival to be vice president, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—and it revolves around military service. The details:

• Walz served in the National Guard for 24 years before retiring in 2005 to run for Congress in Minnesota. Politico notes that Walz filed his paperwork to run in February 2005, roughly a month before reports came out that his unit might be deployed to Iraq and about five months before the official orders were issued.
• A former Guard colleague, Al Bonnifeld, says Walz knew of the potential deployment and wrestled with whether it was the right time to run for office. "He told us that he wanted to run for Congress, and he was in a tough spot, because he was pretty sure we were going to Iraq," Bonnifield told NewsNation, per the Hill. But, Bonnifield noted, "we didn't have orders. We didn't have any kind of orders at all."
• The Washington Post has one of the most thorough explorations of all this here. It includes the views of those such as Bonnifield, who praise Walz's service, as well as those who served with Walz and are critical of him.

• Vance is essentially accusing Walz of cowardice and of inflating his service, attacks reminiscent of the infamous "swift boat" attacks on John Kerry in the 2004 election over his Vietnam War record, per USA Today. The story notes that Chris LaCivita, who led the attacks on Kerry, is now a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. The criticism of Walz on this front has surfaced previously in his Minnesota elections, without success. (Two Guard retirees wrote this scathing letter in 2018.)
• Vance also is calling attention to a Walz quote from a campaign event a while back in Minnesota (and being trumpeted by the Harris-Walz campaign) in which he referred to the "weapons I carried in war." Walz never saw combat, prompting Vance's jab: "Well, I wonder. Tim Walz, when were you ever in war?" For the record, Vance served four years in the Marines and went to Iraq, but he served in a communications role there and did not see combat, either, per the New York Times.

(More Tim Walz stories.)