Why Not Say What Happened?

 The next stop in the presidential campaign is the October 1 VP debate between Vance and Walz, and I'm already cringing with trepidation. Now, I don't doubt that Walz will continue to come across to the American people as an infinitely more likable and sympathetic character than Vance. But I do know that Vance is going to bring up yet again the handful of discrepancies in Walz's past accounts of himself that he has tried to make so much hay of on the campaign trail.

"You said you and your wife used IVF," Vance will say. "But you actually used some other kind of fertility treatment." (And why does this distinction matter? Because Republicans are only trying to ban the former kind. But wait—they aren't trying to ban that either, according to Trump and Vance. So, how can it serve them to bring up this distinction? No matter, Vance will bring it up anyways.) Or he'll say: "You said you carried weapons of war—but you were never in a combat role."

Now, both of Walz's prior statements on these two points can be defended. Does he really need to get into the details of precisely which kind of fertility treatment he and his wife used? Does he need to tell the American people that, in order to make the broader point? Or is it none of our concern. "A golden rule: mind your own business," as Walz has said. That's the whole point of his campaign—to restore some rights of privacy to intimate decisions about child-rearing. 

How about the combat thing? Here again, I think Walz's way of describing these things in the past was perfectly justifiable. Just say: 1) It's literally true that I've carried weapons of war. That's not the same thing as saying I've been in combat. 2) I was making a broader point about school shootings. Or, how about the related charge that he claimed to have retired at a certain military rank? Just say: I did in fact hold that rank in the National Guard; I was speaking broadly but not untruthfully. 

In other words, why not just respond to these charges by saying exactly why Walz spoke about them the way he did? "Why not say what happened?" as the poet Robert Lowell wrote. There can be no harm in just telling the American people what he was actually thinking when he said these things. Because the logic actually makes sense. It's how any of us would casually describe these things in conversation too. We also wouldn't get into the technical details of military retirement or fertility treatments. 

But I'm worried, because Walz didn't do this the last time around. Instead, he dodged and weaved. He said, "well my wife is the grammar teacher, not me. I misspoke. My grammar isn't great," or something to that effect. But everyone knows he didn't misspeak. He didn't make a grammatical error. What actually happened is that he spoke in generalities. He said things that were broadly true, without foreseeing in the moment how they would be picked apart pedantically by his opponents. 

So, I maintain he would be better served by just saying what actually happened: 1) "My wife and I did actually receive fertility treatment. I didn't think I needed to get into all the personal details." 2) "I did carry weapons of war, just not in combat, and I never said otherwise." 3) "I did in fact hold that rank in the military." What is to fear from saying these truths? What does he have to hide, once the truth is plainly stated? So, I say it again to the campaign: "Why not say what happened?"