How low can the bar go for what is acceptable in a Republican candidate to the rest of their party? That is a question that many have been asking ever since the rise of Donald Trump. Because while he was busily tearing up all the political rules of decorum, one of the first ones he shredded and flushed down his golden toilet was the expectation that political candidates aren't suppose to tell blatant lies -- especially about themselves. Before Trump, getting caught in one big fat lie might not have been a death blow to a Republican politician's career (at least, with the right artfully-worded explanation), but getting caught in two of them was sure to be disqualifying. In our post-Trump world, however, it is apparently fine with the Republican Party if you just go out and have a ball lying your face off and just making things up out of thin air. Because, these days, why not?

This week, the "liar, liar, pants on fire" spotlight is on the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, Herschel Walker. Just this week alone, it was revealed that Walker has been untruthful about his stance on absentee fathers and that he repeatedly lied about being some sort of policeman or even F.B.I. agent. That's just the revelations from this week alone, mind you. And so far, I have yet to hear any denunciations from any of the prominent national Republicans who are backing Walker (and I'm not exactly holding my breath waiting, either).

Let's start with today's revelation, from the Washington Post:

Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia who has been a vocal critic of absentee fathers in Black households, acknowledged Tuesday that he has a second son with whom he has little interaction.

The acknowledgment came after the Daily Beast reported that Walker has a 10-year-old son, and that the boy's mother sued the football legend to obtain a declaration of paternity and child support. By the time Walker was ordered to pay child support in August 2014, the child had already taken his last name, according to the Daily Beast.

Scott Paradise, Walker's campaign manager, confirmed in a statement to The Washington Post early Wednesday that Walker has a second son.

So he's been making political hay (as many Republicans are wont to do) over the issue of Black absentee fathers... while he himself was a Black absentee father. That's a lie of omission, at the very least. And naked hypocrisy, to boot.

Earlier in the week, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported:

In September 2019, Herschel Walker stood in front of an auditorium of soldiers in combat fatigues at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The motivational talk was, by now, familiar; Walker traced the obstacles he had overcome, including his struggle with mental health. But more than 30 minutes into the speech, Walker wandered off topic.

"I worked for law enforcement, y'all didn't know that either?" he said. "I spent time at Quantico at the FBI training school. Y'all didn't know I was an agent?"

It wasn't the first time Walker said he was in law enforcement, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found while reviewing dozens of speeches and motivational talks by Walker that were posted online.

"I work with the Cobb County Police Department, and I've been in criminal justice all my life," he said in 2017.

. . .

The Cobb County Police Department said it had no record of involvement with Walker. The Cobb Sheriff's Office could not say whether he was an honorary deputy.

But former DeKalb County District Attorney J. Tom Morgan said even if he was, that doesn't mean a lot.

"It gives you absolutely no law enforcement authority," he said. "It's like a junior ranger badge."

As for that F.B.I. claim, apparently Walker may have spent a week training at the F.B.I.'s headquarters in Quantico, Virginia -- but that's it. Because (among many other reasons) you have to have a bachelor's degree to be an agent... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

These two are not isolated incidents. Walker has also been caught lying about other rather large things, too. On his schooling, Walker has claimed he had been the "valedictorian of his class" in high school. And that he had "graduated University of Georgia in the top one percent of his class." Neither was remotely true -- he didn't even bother to graduate from college, much less at the tippy-top of his class.

Politicians lying about their educational record is one thing, but lying about helping veterans used to be a real deal-breaker for Republicans. But it hasn't been for Walker, who has claimed he "founded" a non-profit charity devoted to helping veterans, and that he didn't take a dime in compensation for his services. All false. The business was for-profit, not a charity. Walker didn't found it or co-found it. He was a paid celebrity spokesman for it, and earned over $300,000 last year for his work. The business has been accused of padding its own profits by pushing "those with government-sponsored insurance into inpatient mental health care to drive revenue," and "push[ing] staff at its mental health facilities to misdiagnose patients and falsify documents in order to hospitalize those who did not require it." In other words, a scam. Scamming military veterans and the United States government.

Walker has also blatantly lied about his business record in other ways, claiming to have businesses that are the largest of their kind in the country (which turn out to not even be the largest such businesses in Georgia) and falsely claiming to own the "largest upholstery company in the United States," a claim which (we cannot resist, sorry...) seems to have been made up out of whole cloth.

At one point during all the deranged lunacy (led by Trump) about COVID miracle cures, Walker falsely claimed:

Do you know right now, I have something that can bring you into a building, that will clean you of COVID, as you walk through this, this dry mist? As you walk through the door, it will kill any COVID on your body. E.P.A., F.D.A. approved. When you leave, it will kill the virus as you leave, this product. Then I have something you can go and spray down this product. Do you know, they don't want to talk about that. They don't want to hear about that.

"They" don't want to talk about it because such a "dry mist" (whatever that even means) did not and has not ever existed.

Returning to our main theme, though (you can find an almost-complete list of Walker's falsehoods courtesy of the Georgia Democrats, if you want more details), one has to wonder how low the Republican bar for acceptance of such blatant self-promotion and lies has truly dropped to. Walker has not lost any endorsements or support for any of these naked lies. Both Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party as a whole are still in his corner.

And, of course, it goes without saying that the biggest naked liar in the GOP today -- a man who told so many lies while in office the media had to keep a running count that topped an astonishing 30,000 lies when he left office -- still fully backs Walker. Which is entirely fitting. Donald Trump -- the personification of "The Emperor's New Clothes" if ever there was one -- obviously has no problem at all with such dissembling. And as with pretty much everything else, up to and including Trump's 2020 election Big Lie, the Republican Party as a whole merrily follows his lead, gleefully displaying their own naked hypocrisy and opportunism.

Every time you think the GOP's bar just can't get any lower, it always does.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant