ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO DESTROY A CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE - AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  The Washington Post, in my view, has improved importantly in the last year, and its editorial page, while liberal, is often sane and thoughtful.  But there are still lapses.  This past week the Post ran a news story exposing an academic thesis written two decades ago by the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell.  It contains controversial ideas.

Highly respected political observer Michael Barone takes the Post to task for the way it has handled the story, which, Barone feels, smacks of bias:

In the 2006 campaign season the Washington Post ran more than a dozen front-page stories on Senator George Allen’s reference, at an August 11 campaign stop almost 400 miles from Washington, to an opposition campaign staffer as “Macaca.” One of these stories, perhaps, had enough news value to be worthy of the front page; the others were placed there with the obvious intent of defeating Allen and electing his Democratic opponent Jim Webb, who did indeed win by a 50%-49% margin.

Now there’s a campaign on for governor of Virginia, and the news editors of the Post seem to be using their front page once again to defeat the Republican candidate, Bob McDonnell, and elect Democrat Creigh Deeds.

Barone is starting a "Macaca watch":

Item number one on the Macaca Watch is the Sunday front page story on the thesis Bob McDonnell wrote in 1989 at Regent University where he obtained a masters degree in public policy and a law degree...

...the first paragraph of the story, prominently on the front page, sends the culturally liberal voters of Northern Virginia in the Post’s local circulation area a pretty clear message: you better not vote for this guy.

And...

Item number two on the Macaca watch is Tuesday’s front page story headlined “Governor’s Race Erupts Over McDonnell’s Past View.” The “eruption” consists of a bunch of emails sent out by Democrats quoting from McDonnell’s thesis and a McDonnell conference call with reporters answering questions—pretty routine campaign stuff, hardly front page material.

The reasoning behind the "stories":

The obvious agenda here is to raise the specter that if McDonnell is elected, all women in Virginia will be fired from their jobs and forced to stay home knitting or driving car pool. We’ll see how much longer the Post can keep this story on the front page.

Update: The Washington Post published two more stories about McDonnell's thesis on Wednesday.

COMMENT:  We declare that it's perfectly proper for The Post to go back into a candidate's past to provide a complete picture of the individual.  But why is this only done, normally, with conservative candidates?  If a newspaper went back decades to reprint a liberal candidate's, say, Marxist views in college, it would be called - you know it - McCarthyism. 

We see the same pattern constantly.  Conservative candidate:  Detailed investigation.  Liberal candidate or newsmaker:  Vagueness.  Thus, hard Marxists are described as "anti-war" activists or "peace activists."  If a conservative candidate made a racially questionable remark 30 years ago, the press hammers away, and the hammering might be appropriate.  But if a Democrat did the same thing, the press assures us that he's evolved.

I'm glad Barone is carrying the torch on this.  He has great credibility and must be listened to.

September 3, 2009