WaPo Editorial Board Praises Virginia Governor Ralph Northam For NOT Resigning After Blackface Photo
It’s amazing how enacting a couple of leftwing policies can make journalists excuse any inappropriate behavior.
After old yearbook photos of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam either wearing a KKK costume or blackface were revealed, there were many calls for his resignation.
Yours truly thought that his career was in the crapper after that.
But, Northam refused to cave. Suddenly, when it was revealed that Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax was facing sexual assault allegations from two women and the Attorney General Mark Herring also wore blackface in 1980, the Media(D) got very quiet because the next person in line to assume power was a Republican and not a Democrat.
And, now that Northam has shown his contrition and the Democrat-controlled state government has proposed a massive gun-confiscation plan, the Media(D) are standing by their man.
Since Feb. 1, when the discovery of a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page dealt what seemed a lethal blow to his political career, Mr. Northam has refocused his governorship on racial equity and reconciliation in what amounted to an extended act of public contrition and atonement. It has been astonishingly effective not just in terms of his own political rehabilitation — his poll numbers climbed from the depths — but also in setting a clear theme for his four-year term in office, delimited by Virginia’s prohibition on governors succeeding themselves.
Here is Washington Post opinion columnist Karen Tumulty tweeting the link to her article on Gov. Northam’s “spectacular” political comeback.
Back when a racist photo first surfaced in his medical school yearbook, most Va lawmakers, our editorial page (and yours truly) said @GovernorVA should resign. We were wrong. https://t.co/bA25YpnWbk
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) December 28, 2019
The article is effusive in its praise of Northam’s savvy political moves as well as taking a cheap swipe at President Trump in the process.
In February, most of Virginia’s lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, called on him to resign, as did an editorial on this page. Few of those calls were repeated for long, although the question of who is in the photo, if it is not Mr. Northam, remains unanswered. It helped Mr. Northam that his potential Democratic successors were quickly enmeshed in their own scandals, which shifted the spotlight and forced his party to consider whether it would prefer a Republican governor. (It wouldn’t.) It helped that Virginia Republicans, rarely bothered by President Trump’s race-baiting, lack any credibility to criticize Mr. Northam, a former lawmaker whose record on race was strong before he was elected governor in 2017.
Most potent, it helped that he set himself an agenda on racial equity and pursued it single-mindedly. Scarcely a week or month has passed without Mr. Northam visiting a racially significant site, seeking out counsel from black leaders or announcing an initiative to advance racial justice. He hired Virginia’s, and possibly the nation’s, first state director of diversity, equity and inclusion. He established a commission to comb state law for racist language and provisions, much of it left over from the Jim Crow era. He ordered measures to expand access to state contracts for women- and minority-owned firms, to which less than 3 percent of state contracts were awarded a decade ago. He set up a commission to recommend reforms in the way black history is taught in Virginia’s public schools.
Source: Washington Post
So… pandering to the African American community by visiting significant sites and talking to black leaders is enough for all to be forgiven?
Does that mean that historically low levels of black unemployment under President Trump can erase all of the mean words that have been twisted by the Media(D) to make him suddenly racist? Governor Northam might be visiting historic sites and combing through to eliminate the vestiges of Jim Crow in Virginia (which should have been eliminated long before now,) but President Trump is improving the lives of black Americans by opening up employment opportunities for them.
Besides, President Trump hasn’t done anything that is more racist than wearing a Klan hood or blackface. Go ahead and find one example. I’ll wait…
But just so you know who this Karen Tumulty is, she was quick to jump up and condemn the Covington Catholic school kids as “little jerks” who could be redeemed through public service projects.
I offer this as a fellow Catholic, which means I believe there is always a path to redemption. Also, that lots of people who start out as little jerks can grow up to be good adults.
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) January 19, 2019
Good ol’ Karen here says that “the cure for ignorance is understanding” but is still won’t give anyone with an “R” after their name (or a teen wearing a MAGA hat) the benefit of the doubt.
Karen isn’t a reporter, she’s an opinion columnist. Nonetheless, this shows the significant bias of the Media(D). There is nothing that a Democrat can do that won’t be forgiven if they hold the right policies. Governor Northam is a gun-grabber who has stated he is all for infanticide let alone abortion up to 40 weeks.
Meanwhile, WaPo insists that President Trump is attempting to “re-write his history” of the “fine people” comments in Charlottesville by posting a video of his entire comments where he is clearly condemning both white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
What happened to contrition being enough?
Oh, right. That only works if you have a “D” after your name.