Annals of Democrat Fabulists: Less Wes Is Moore Truth

For a party in desperate search of heroes, the Democrats have been having a rough go.

Life being what it is, knights in shining white armor are by their very nature nearly impossible to find, but one should be able to hope for a champion on a steed who, while even a bit dented and tarnished, holds up under assault.

Democrats are finding it nearly impossible to anoint anyone whose well-honed public resume can even hold up long enough to remain on the horse, let alone ride off to a joust.

War Hero Walz of Minnesota was the most recent and spectacular flameout. Chosen specifically for his down-home appeal as everyman and military cred as a National Guard senior enlisted staff non-commissioned officer (SNCO), it turned out that Walz’s war stories were as embellished as a bedazzled ballcap and twice as offensive. It was bad enough learning, for all of his salty ‘carried weapons of war in war’ talk, that he’d never once been in-country until years later as a congressman. But finding out the reason was Walz scuttling from his unit when he learned they were finally going to be deployed to Iraq? As their senior enlisted, he abandoned his unit?

How he has the nerve to show his face in public after that disgraceful revelation tells you everything you need to know about what sort of pond scum Tim Walz is.

There was no squaring that rotund peg, however desperately the liberal media tried to equivocate.

With the Harris/Stolen Valor flameout leaving the party in disarray, naturally, the search is on for someone, anybody, who can step into take over the frontrunner spot. 

The choices are pretty slim so far, with California’s Greasy Governor Shimmy Shimmy Cocobot and the loser former Vice-President heading the list right now.

Surely there is another candidate on the fringes who sees themselves as presidential material who could carry the torch into 2028.

One person had been mentioned, and if you’ve watched him carefully, he did seem to have those sort of aspirations simmering beneath his urbane exterior.

Maryland’s Governor Wes Moore is a tall, good-looking, well-built guy who’s exceptionally comfortable in public appearances and carries himself with that certain something that sets him apart. He has all the progressive tickee boxes checked off – wind farms, climate change, etc – and has been balancing a supposed concern for budget issues against his more radical Green agenda in order to straddle that all-important ‘have everyone a little ticked off at me’ middle ground so important for electoral success.

…When Moore vetoed the RENEW bill, climate advocates were shocked, noting that the administration had not previously voiced opposition to the bill. Mike Tidwell, founder of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, called the move “unforgivable.”

But it’s possible that Moore’s about-face will help him to make amends, as Annapolis gears up for its next full legislative session on Jan. 14.

…Rockefeller Family Fund Director Lee Wasserman said the charity — which focuses on climate change, democracy and economic justice for women — supported the RENEW bill and others like it around the country, and was stunned by Moore’s veto.

“These costs are going to be landing on states including Maryland whether they figure out what they look like ahead of time or not, so it’s hard for me to imagine how achieving a greater understanding of the parameters of those costs could possibly be seen as negative,” Wasserman said. “To the contrary, it seems like good governance 101.”

“I’m less surprised that the governor has decided how to backtrack, appropriately so, and get the state the opportunity to really practice good governance,” Wasserman said.

Moore is working the angles.

Then again, unlike, say, Tim Walz, he’s a really smart guy – there’s no denying that.

Moore’s resume looks like a dream, even though he’s had a hiccup or two with keeping his own military record straight.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday he made “an honest mistake” in failing to correct a White House fellowship application 18 years ago when he wrote he had received a Bronze Star for his military service in Afghanistan though he never ended up receiving it, after the New York Times obtained a copy of the application and reported on it.

The newspaper, which obtained the document as part of a Freedom of Information Act request, reported that Moore made the claim on the application in 2006 when he was 27.

In a statement, the governor wrote that he had been encouraged to fill out the application for the fellowship by his deputy brigade commander serving overseas in the Army. At the time, Moore said the deputy brigade commander had recommended him for the Bronze Star — and told him to include the award on his application “after confirming with two other senior-level officers that they had also signed off on the commendation.”

A year ago, they made sure that Moore’s chest had that bronze star. 

…The private ceremony at the governor’s residence in Annapolis, Maryland, on Friday was confirmed by the governor’s office.

Lt. Gen. Michael Fenzel, the governor’s close friend and former commander who had recommended Moore for the medal, pinned the Bronze Star for “meritorious service” onto the governor’s chest at the ceremony, The Washington Post reported.

“I’m so happy to be in a position to right a wrong,” Fenzel said during the ceremony, the newspaper reported.

…Fenzel said Friday that the controversy was the first time he learned that Moore, a former Army captain, had never received the Bronze Star. On learning about it, Fenzel said he immediately called the chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormouth to notify her that he planned to recommend Moore for the award again and create the paperwork anew, including collecting approval from Moore’s old chain of command.

I would like to think they’d do the same for anyone, regardless of who they were or what party they belong to.

Right?

That smoothed over, Moore should have been on his way to what everyone had been thinking would soon be a dipping of the toes in presidential primary waters, if he could get Maryland’s fiscal house in some sort of order. That could take a bit of doing.

COVID funds have dried up, and not coincidentally, so has the massive surplus that former Republican governor Larry Hogan had left the state when Moore took over.

Maryland is facing a nearly $1.5 billion budget deficit for the next fiscal year lawmakers learned Wednesday during a budget presentation.

The grim projected is fueled by several factors, according to budget analysts who presented it to the Spending Affordability Committee along with House and Senate Committees Wednesday. However, the numbers could change ahead of the next General Assembly Session with more estimates expected in coming weeks and months.

“The outlook is a lot worse for fiscal [year] 27 than it was at the end of session,” David Romans, DLS fiscal and policy analysis coordinator said. “It’s about a billion and a half deficit versus a projected small surplus when we ended session.”

There is some talk deficits could balloon to as high as $4B purely from funding state Democrats’ pet projects like one called the ‘Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.’

…Buckel isn’t alone in his spending concerns. In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey said Democrats in Annapolis “tied Maryland taxpayers to new, expensive, long-term programs” like the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future “with no sustainable plan to pay for them.”

“You can’t spend like there’s no tomorrow and act surprised when the bill comes due,” Hershey said via statement.

Long-term funding for the Blueprint remains a concern in outyears as well. The state is projected to spend about $79 million in general fund dollars in fiscal year 2027; that’s on top of nearly $1.6 billion in dedicated Blueprint dollars going to fund the program in fiscal year 2027 and $1.4 billion in fund balance spending. The state is projected to continue dipping into the general fund for Blueprint dollars in future years; DLS projects by fiscal year 2031, the state could spend as $3.7 billion in general fund dollars for the Blueprint alone.

Progressives in power are such fun and really pricey.

Wes Moore, smart guy that he is, is undoubtedly qualified to work on these weighty projects in order to get things to a less-painful level. But there is now some question arising about Moore’s qualifications as found on his impressive resume.

That same White House fellowship application – the one that tripped him up on the Bronze Star he hadn’t received – has now snared Moore in a web of graduate studies contradictions and what look to be prevarications, if not outright untruths aka lies.

Last month, a reporter for the Washington Free Beacon asked Rhodes Scholar Moore (I told you he was smart – Johns Hopkins grad, too) for a copy of his Oxford University master’s thesis. This thesis is the basis of Moore’s claim on that application that he was considered a ‘foremost expert on radical Islam.’

Well. Things get really squirrely after that.

Neither Moore nor the Bodleian Library at Oxford has this thesis. And his ‘graduation dates’ are all over the map.

Maryland governor Wes Moore, now considered a serious prospect for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, got his big break in 2006. Fresh off a one-year deployment to Afghanistan, President George W. Bush awarded Moore, then 27, a White House fellowship, a prestigious, year-long internship during which he served as a special assistant to then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. It put Moore on the path to ultimately becoming Maryland’s governor, and he won the fellowship—in the turbulent years after 9/11—claiming to be a “foremost expert” on radical Islam thanks to his academic work at Oxford University.

“As a Rhodes Scholar, I took advantage of the opportunity and examined radical Islam in the Western Hemisphere,” Moore wrote in his application to serve as a White House fellow, indicating that he had graduated from Oxford in 2003 with a Master of Letters, or MLitt, in international relations. “I completed my degree with honors and my research has led me to be touted as one of the foremost experts on the threat.” The White House parroted the claim in a press release announcing the 2006 fellowship class, borrowing from Moore’s application to note that his Oxford thesis, which it said was titled The Rise and Ramifications of Radical Islam in the Western Hemisphere, had “earned him praise as one of the foremost experts on the topic.”

That a 27-year-old could claim to be a “foremost expert” on the Islamic threat based on a year at an American military base in Afghanistan and two years at Oxford could be excused away as an ambitious young man’s puffery. But on close examination, Moore’s claims of expertise and of being a serious scholar completely unravel, as do his claims, also on his White House fellowship application, that he was working toward an Oxford doctorate.

The problems start with confusion—which neither Moore’s staff nor Oxford’s registrars were willing or able to clear up—about when Moore completed his studies, when he received his degree, whether he submitted his thesis, and what the title of the work was.

As opposed to doing their best to clear up any confusion, according to Moore’s staff, the Washington Free Beacon, as you might imagine, is RACIST for even asking.

…Asked to reconcile the two dates, a spokesman for the governor didn’t provide a photograph of Moore’s degree, but rather, a “degree confirmation,” generated last week by Oxford’s registrar’s office, indicating Moore completed his graduate studies as a full-time student and “has been awarded the degree,” but has not yet been issued a formal certificate. The “degree confirmation” generated by Oxford gives another contradictory date, showing that Moore completed his full-time graduate studies in November of 2005, a full four years after he began his Oxford studies, though a master’s degree typically takes two years to earn.

According to Moore, by November 2005, the month when Oxford now says Moore completed his master’s studies, he was serving in the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. He also says he began working as an investment banker at Deutsche Bank in London in March 2004.

That’s just the beginning of the peculiarities and inconsistencies surrounding Moore’s graduate studies, which a spokesman for the governor, Ammar Moussa, dismissed—after several off-the-record conversations—by saying the Washington Free Beacon is not “engaged in journalism” and is “doing what they always do: manufacturing doubt about the accomplishments of a Black veteran, Rhodes Scholar, and public servant because it fits their narrative.”

Racist and spreading conspiracy theories – I want to be perfectly clear about that. Credit where credit is due.

And the paper is a vapour.

…The mystery surrounding the title of and content of Moore’s thesis could be resolved with a cursory review of the document. But that, too, poses a problem for Moore. His office could not produce a copy of the document since we began requesting it in early November.

And good luck finding it at Oxford’s legendary Bodleian Library, which archives all MLitt theses from the university’s graduate students. A senior librarian told the Free Beacon she couldn’t find “any trace” of Moore’s paper, because he never submitted it.

“I can see on his record that he has not submitted his thesis to the Bodleian, so they wouldn’t have a record of it,” Oxford deputy communications chief Julia Paolitto told the Free Beacon. “MLitt students are required to submit their thesis to the Bodleian in order to confer their degree at a ceremony, however as Mr. Moore has never had a ceremony this is not a requirement he would have needed to fulfil.”

Paolitto’s confirmation that Moore did not submit his thesis puts the governor in a tough position. Moussa, his press secretary, insisted that Moore submitted his thesis and said the Free Beacon would be spreading a conspiracy theory by suggesting otherwise.

The Free Beacon story is fascinating – a real detective gripper. And the spokesman for Moore, this Moussa character, man – he simply pours fuel on the fire, and can’t you tell it charged that reporter up to really start digging into everything.

That’s not good for Moore if the slightest cursory glance can’t hold up without creating more questions…and awkward moments.

…Moore’s office pointed the Free Beacon to one of his sources for that essay, the journalist Sebastian Junger, author of the bestselling nonfiction book about Massachusetts commercial fishermen, The Perfect Storm, which was made into a George Clooney movie. Junger told the Free Beacon he spoke with Moore sometime in 2002 about radical Islam in the Tri-Border region. He said Moore “had informed questions, which is what every journalist or researcher hopes to have,” but declined to comment when asked if it is fair to characterize Moore as a “foremost expert” on the topic.

“I don’t know his body of work,” Junger said. “He may or may not be. I don’t have a basis for saying that.”

So far, things are looking sketchy for Democrats.

Wes should learn quickly that less is Moore when you’re trying to keep stories straight.

Plus, don’t have your henchmen call reporters racists right off – it just makes them mad and then they find stuff 

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