The “white lie” journalists

The latest half-assed defense of liars comes from Forbes’ Kai Falkenberg, their Editorial Counsel in a column she titles “Liars Rejoice! The First Amendment Protects You” where she says;

On July 23, 2007, Xavier Alvarez, a director of the Three Valley Water District Board of Directors, introduced himself at a board meeting by saying: “I’m a retired marine of 25 years. I retired in the year 2001. Back in 1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I got wounded many times by the same guy. I’m still around.” Each of these statements — with the exception of “I’m still around” — was a lie. Alvarez was indicted and convicted under the 2005 federal Stolen Valor Act for falsely claiming that he had been awarded the Medal of Honor (the nation’s highest military honor).

Falkenburg concludes;

If protecting free speech requires that we tolerate tall tales, that in the scheme of things, seems a small price to pay.

I wonder if she noticed that Alvarez made his statement in an attempt to win votes for his political office. That he was defrauding voters, just like Rick Strandlof was defrauding voters when he used his Rick Duncan personae to influence people to vote for anti-war candidates. Of course, Strandlof/Duncan was backing Democrat candidates, so in her mind it was probably justified. Just like Richard Blumenthal was forgiven for his lies about his Vietnam service while he apologized with another phony Marine standing right behind him.

Everyone wants to sound so smart by announcing that they’re willing to accept some lies about military service to defend the First Amendment, but whose freedom is being intruded upon? The voters. is it any wonder that people have little faith in our government when we can’t stop voters from being influenced by dishonest vote thieves who hide behind the shield of the First Amendment to continue their dishonesty and election theft?

Republicans are attacked for their military service (Dan Quayle, George W. Bush) and Democrats are allowed to completely lie about their service. Doug Sterner is right when he says that party affiliation has nothing to do with stolen valor, but it’s used to exonerate phony soldiers. Anyone have any doubt that culture warrior Michal McManus will walk free as a victim of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell even though he was booted from military service six years before DADT?

Even Jesse MacBeth was walking around a free man after perpetrating a huge fraud on the American public until he decided to defraud the VA.

Yet George Bush is still thought to have been AWOL because a bunch of dimwits don;t understand what “not observed” means on an OER. And Dan Quayle was dodging the draft by hiding out in the National Guard (101 National Guardsmen and 1300 Reservists were killed in Vietnam).

Category: Media, Phony soldiers