(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Making sure that in war is the only place those weapons are at. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-08-11 “And we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried, IN WAR is the only place that they’re at.” How does that sentence — that part of a 2018 campaign speech — attract an accusation of stolen valor? It can’t, fairly. Walz is being mis-comma’d. He didn’t ever claim to have carried weapons of war, in war. He said the sentence above. Walz didn’t write the sentence down. He spoke it. JD Vance applied the comma in the wrong place, and the news media went with it. Did he do it on purpose? Was some staffer too clever by half? I don’t know. But it’s clear reporters are falling for it. LISTEN to the clip. Here is the link on YouTube. The sentence getting all the buzz is about 25 seconds in: If you are being fair about how to transcribe what he said, it goes like this: “...And we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried, in war is the only place they are at. “ Walz is speaking fast, but perfectly grammatically. So if you aren’t convinced by the pause, listen to the verb — “is”. What’s the subject of “is” that supplies the match for “the only place?” It’s “In war.” The phrase literally makes no sense the way Vance quotes it. It makes perfect sense the way Walz actually said it. By the way — you might notice how very few of the articles we’ve been seeing the last few days link to the original video? I am a firm believer in the adage — never attribute to malice that which is sufficiently explained by stupidity. Or perhaps in this case, laziness. Because at best that failure to link means the reporters writing those articles took a claim by a political opponent and didn’t check the original source. At best that’s just lazy journalism. Where does it lead? It leads to pretty decent folk like Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post accusing Walz of being “sloppy and false.” www.washingtonpost.com/… And then being widely quoted by everyone else as having condemned Walz. But Kessler is condemning Walz for a claim Walz never made. Kessler should have been more diligent — and should have fact-checked Vance. Walz didn’t mis-speak. He was deliberately misunderstood. Kosniaks — Respect your fourth-grade teachers. Look it up. Commas matter. Don’t be lazy. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/11/2262462/-Making-sure-that-in-war-is-the-only-place-those-weapons-are-at?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/