{"id":147050,"date":"2023-09-09T11:18:30","date_gmt":"2023-09-09T15:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=147050"},"modified":"2023-09-09T11:18:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-09T15:18:30","slug":"another-election-cycle-another-politician-accused-of-stolen-valor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=147050","title":{"rendered":"Another election cycle, another politician accused of stolen valor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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VA Republican gubernatorial candidate Moore Capito<\/p><\/div>\n

The above pictured photo is used on Moore Capito’s campaign site as he is running for Governor of Virginia on the Republican ticket. The photo is from his time on the staff of the Secretary of Defense. Since it’s a photo where he’s wearing a camo flak jacket, while carrying a helmet, and in front of a USAF C-17, he’s being accused of stolen valor.<\/p>\n

To be clear, Capito has not claimed to be a veteran in any material we can find. Nor have his critics pointed to any such claim. The photo, where he’s very clearly in civilian clothing, is all it takes for his critics to cry “Stolen valor!”<\/p>\n

Breitbart<\/a> has the story;<\/p>\n

A leading West Virginia gubernatorial candidate, Moore Capito (R), son of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), features a photo of himself on his campaign website that some critics say appears aimed at misleading voters into thinking he is a veteran.<\/p>\n

The photo, which appears in the \u201cGet to Know Moore\u201d section of his campaign website, features Moore wearing a camouflage flak jacket and carrying a helmet on an airstrip with a military plane in the background.<\/p>\n

His bio does not claim he served in the military, and only says:<\/p>\n

After graduating college, Moore worked in Washington, D.C. to begin his career in public service. He worked for the Republican Majority in the United States Congress, traveled in support of the President as a member of The White House advance team, and served on the staff of the Secretary of Defense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to his LinkedIn page, Capito graduated from Duke University in 2005 and worked for the Office of the Secretary of Defense from November 2007 through September 2008, which would be during the Bush administration, under Defense Secretary Robert Gates.<\/p>\n

Sean Parnell, a former Republican U.S. Senate candidate for Pennsylvania and an Army combat veteran, argued that Capito\u2019s usage of the photo was intentionally misleading.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can try to deny it all he wants, but Moore Capito knew exactly what he was trying to do with this picture. Attempting to fool voters into thinking that you served in the military when you actually haven\u2019t, is a slap in the face to every single veteran who has served,\u201d said Parnell, a Purple Heart recipient.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Judge for yourself, but on the scale of stolen valor this seems like a real stretch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The above pictured photo is used on Moore Capito’s campaign site as he is running for Governor of Virginia on the Republican ticket. The photo is from his time on the staff of the Secretary of Defense. Since it’s a photo where he’s wearing a camo flak jacket, while carrying a helmet, and in front […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":143991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[643,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2024-election","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/stolen-valor-image.jpg?fit=694%2C522&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-CfM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/143991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}