The people at PolitiFact clearly don't like being used in Republican ads. PolitiFact Virginia has designated a new Republican ad against Sen. Mark Warner as "False" for underlining he promised he wasn't voting for any bill that would eliminate your health care plan....and then he voted for Obamacare.
Somehow, GOP challenger Ed Gillespie is judged as wrong to suggest Politifact called this the "Lie of the Year," or suggesting it applies to every Democrat pushing Obamacare, not just Obama.
In an 11-paragraph piece in today's Washington Post, staff writer Rachel Weiner did Democrat John Foust a favor, promoting his new campaign ad savaging Republican opponent Barbara Comstock. Foust and Comstock are competing to win the approval of voters in Virginia's 10th Congressional District.
The shamelessly partisan Washington Post wants to publicize nothing that helps Republican Ed Gillespie make up ground on Democratic Sen. Mark Warner. A story on 250,000 Virginians losing their insurance coverage because it doesn't meet Obamacare standards appeared on page B-4.
So which Gillespie story has appeared on Page 1? It came on September 3: “Va. underdog Gillespie may have his eye on next race.”
The soap opera that played out in Richmond these last weeks and ended with the convictions of former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy charges is a tragedy for them, their children and the voters of Virginia.
.jpg?itok=gUEDVrZj)
The Washington Post has deeply and lovingly covered the corruption scandal around former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell, and couldn’t contain its excitement over the trial. In Sunday’s newspaper and in Tuesday’s Post Express tabloid, they highlighted this preview in headlines: “It’s Going To Be Ugly.” They couldn't wait for the ugliness.
What neither headline explained was that they were quoting former Democratic Gov. Doug Wilder, which only underlined what a Democratic rag they are. Meanwhile, current Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s corrupt little company GreenTech lost in a libel lawsuit last week against the conservative Franklin Center for its journalism. How did the Post treat that?
On page A7 of the July 16 paper, Washington Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin hacked out 12 paragraphs of goo over President Obama's Tuesday visit to the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in McLean, Va., where he "[made] a case for pouring more federal funds in U.S. infrastructure" and also got behind the wheel of "a self-driving car stationed at a simulator." "Man, this is so exciting.... I haven't been on the road in a long time," Eilperin quoted the president, who added a 1980s pop-culture reference. "It was sort of like 'Knight Rider,' Eilperin quoted Obama, noting that it "[prompted] laughter from a crowd of nearly 200 of the center's employees."
One person not chuckling, however, was John Foust. He's the Fairfax County Democrat running for Congress in the district where the facility is located. The Weekly Standard notes that the Democrat was curiously absent from the presidential visit, eschewing the opportunity for a photo op with the president in a district Obama carried twice (but which is represented currently by Republican Barbara Comstock retiring Republican Congressman Frank Wolf):
To the Washington Post's Laura Vozzella, NARAL Pro-Choice America-endorsed liberal Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is a politician making good on a promise to "free Virginia's abortion clinics from strict hospital-style building codes," set to take effect this June. It's a move which heartens the abortion industry fearful that regulations authorized by a bipartisan vote in the state legislature in 2011 and fleshed out by the state board of health last year "threaten to put them out of business."
Vozzella didn't get around to the objections of McAuliffe's critics until the ninth paragraph of her Tuesday, May 13 front-pager, "McAuliffe moves to lift clinic rules." What's more, she buried in the 23rd paragraph -- of a 30-paragraph story -- the fact that "McAuliffe, elected with help from abortion rights groups, [has] made no pretense of ignoring the litmus test [for his new appointees to the state Board of Health], stating flatly that his appointees reflected his views." What's more, it wasn't until paragraph 27 that Vozzella noticed that (emphasis mine):
The Washington Post is quite explicit: It’s a publicity organ for the gay lobby. They put the fight for gay marriage in Virginia on the front page Monday – and on the front page of the Style section. In about 3,000 words of reporting, there’s not a single social conservative named and quoted in it. There's no debate, only the inevitable and "historic" winners.
The Style article was just the latest in a long trail of plaintiff puff pieces headlined “A Virginia family has three loving warriors in the fight for gay marriage.” Style writer Richard Leiby oozed that 16-year-old Emily Schall-Townley bounced into the room in “a spontaneous scene in an aggressively normal Richmond suburb,” as if there’s anything spontaneous about an interview with plaintiffs vetted and selected by gay activists, as Leiby himself explained:
Last November, liberal Democrat Mark Herring barely eked out a win over conservative Mark Obenshain (R) in the Virginia Attorney General race. Herring had been enthusiastically endorsed by the Washington Post, which promised that, unlike outgoing AG Ken Cuccinelli, Mr. Herring would refuse to "[turn] the office into a platform for ideological crusades." But of course, shortly after being sworn in, Herring made himself a darling of the Left for his refusal to defend the Old Dominion's voter-approved constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. At the time, the Washington Post editorial board praised that maneuver, saying "extraordinary circumstances" justified Herring refusing to, you know, do his job and actually defend the state government in court.
Well, the Post is at it again today with an editorial cheering on Mr. Herring's decision that illegal immigrants may attend Virginia public colleges and universities paying the discounted in-state tuition rate. Having informed readers of the development on the April 30 paper's front page -- although that article contained no cost estimate for move -- the Post editorial board gushed about how it offered "A brighter future for 'Dreamers.'" "The Va. attorney general discards an irrational policy," harumphed the print edition subheadline. Here's the full editorial (emphasis mine):
Virginia’s new governor, Terry McAuliffe, is returning to form, hosting special fundraising coffees with major donors and policy “experts.” This may be just like the way McAuliffe held White House coffees and sold overnight Lincoln Bedroom stays to donors for Bill Clinton, but it’s a bit troublesome for The Washington Post, which quickly cancelled its own cozy idea of sponsored “expert” dinners at the home of publisher Katherine Weymouth.
So the Post buried that McAuliffe story on B-2, while the front page of Metro kept pounding the last governor, indicted Republican Robert McDonnell. The judge in his case colorfully ruled his lawyers were “dancing through fantasy land.”
To its credit, the Washington Post this morning is reporting an intramural spat roiling inside the Democratic Party in the Old Dominion. Turns out gay rights groups are livid that Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.) has nominated Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones to chair the state's Democratic Party. Jones, who happens to be African-American and is a Baptist pastor, "has not endorsed same-sex marriage," the Post's Laura Vozzella noted, even though he has a strong record on other issues of import to the gay-rights movement.
"Activists are working to thwart Jones's election at the party's central committee meeting March 15 -- setting up a highly unusual battle for a sitting governor, whose choice for party chairman is rarely challenged," Vozzella noted in the fourth paragraph of her March 7 front-page story. While the Post deserves kudos for noting the rancorous division within the Democratic ranks, it remains to be seen if MSNBC -- which revels in portraying Republicans as bearing antipathy towards African-Americans -- will dare to cover the story at all.
Washington Post Metro reporter Aaron Davis has an excellent story in today's paper about ethically-deficient D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (D) attending a reelection campaign fundraiser at the home of an "incarcerated real estate mogul" who is guilty of having "prey[ed] on homeowners facing foreclosure." Said home, by the way, is $36,000 in arrears on D.C. property taxes. Last year some of Davis's colleagues reported on how the Gray administration had moved to evict elderly residents from their houses for paltry sums of backpaid taxes, many times in cases where they had not been properly notified that they owed the District any money.
Unfortunately for Davis, and more importantly, for Post readers, his editors decided to shuffle his story off to page C5 in the Sunday paper. By contrast, they plastered the front page of Metro with an above-the-fold headline scolding the Virginia state legislature -- the lower house of which is dominated by Republicans -- for not going far enough in its ethics reforms: "Va. moves to tighten ethics rules -- but not too much."