ABC News says this about Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, the latest Democrat to announce he’s running for president:
At 40, he's the second-youngest candidate, three years older than Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, whom Moulton has described as a friend and fellow veteran.Wait, Tulsi Gabbard and Eric Swalwell are both 38-year-old members of Congress who've announced they're running for president. Have they dropped out? No, Moulton is at most the fourth-youngest candidate, not the "second-youngest"; ABC News just didn’t bother to fact-check. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed the mainstream media getting a 2020 contender’s age wrong; as I posted before, a CNN article understated Joe Biden’s age. If the media isn’t going to be accurate about something as easy to check as the age of presidential candidates, you have to wonder how badly they’re getting the facts wrong in trickier areas.
(I posted a screen shot of ABC's mistake to Facebook for posterity, in case it's eventually corrected.)
By the way, Moulton seems to have an impressive military record as a Marine and an Iraq veteran — not that that’s been an effective way to win votes. The veterans who've run for president in recent memory (John Kerry, Wesley Clark, John McCain, Bob Dole) all failed; it's been a while since we've elected a president with a military background. So I don't expect this to be the factor that makes Moulton stand out from the crowd of at least 20 candidates.
3 comments:
The veterans who've run for president in recent memory (John Kerry, Wesley Clark, John McCain, Bob Dole) all failed...
George W Bush?
Yeah, from one perspective, he was elected almost 20 years ago, from another, he's only two Presidents back from the current one.
George W. Bush wasn't a member of the U.S. military, and he didn't run as a veteran. He was in a Texas state militia at one point, but references to that on the campaign trail were mostly critical, coming from his opponents. So that might be a technical exception to what I said, but my basic point holds up.
John; "W" was commissioned in the Texas Air National Guard, not a state militia. All Guard units, both Army and Air, are considered part of the US Military. Guard units can be Federally activated and routinely deploy overseas along side Active Duty forces.
But I completely agree with the observation that Bush II didn't run on his military record, but rather his experience running a business and as governor of Texas.
-Doug
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