A GOOD DISSERTATION IS A DONE DISSERTATION.

The most difficult part of writing a dissertation is being "almost done."  There is always one more reference to check, one more line of code to edit, one more advisor to appease, or perhaps one more sunny day to devote to mental health.  And thus the status of A.B.D. is one of the more ambiguous to bring to the job meetings.

Then there's serial fabulist Tim Walz.  It's not enough that he's claimed a rank he never completed training for, and that he was defensive coordinator at that Mankato high school.  Tom Landry was defensive coordinator for the New York Giants, but that's not what we know him best for.  (That would be losing to the Packers.)

Now, he apparently included being A.B.D. from St. Mary's (of Minnesota, not the sports school in California) for a few years.  "Walz was only enrolled at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota until 2004 but said until 2011 that he was close to getting his doctorate."

He was working on an Ed.D., for Jill Biden's sake.

Walz, who’d been teaching high school for over a decade, started a course of study at St. Mary's in 2001, enrolling in a "cohort doctoral program," a second spokeswoman told the Free Beacon. He stopped taking classes at St. Mary's in 2004 and never earned a degree, the spokeswoman said.

"Governor Walz was enrolled as part of a cohort doctoral program from 2001-2004 and has not taken classes at Saint Mary's since that time," said Michelle Rovang, the school's vice president of communications.

There are a number of formats for a "cohort doctoral program," although the common feature appears to be a way of providing continuing education, or perhaps qualifying for a pay raise in educational administration, for people already working in their field.  That might be a selling point for St. Mary's Minnesota.

It's not playing so well among the Militant Normals.

Man couldn’t swing an Ed.D., the most bogus doctorate outside of journalism. Maybe he didn’t want to upstage Jill Biden.https://t.co/nK54llsAOD

— Luther Ray Abel (@LutherAbel1) September 5, 2024

Well, the Democrats concealed Dementia Joe's dementia for years, and they're concealing the subgame-perfect path of play to the vice president being acclaimed nominee, so what's one more lie in the service of keeping the Bad Orange Man away from the Resolute Desk?