Virginia Pilot Slams Cuccinelli - Why Not Scott Rigell Too?

Today the Virginian Pilot has an editorial that slams Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli's anti-abortion agenda and his efforts to manipulate and intimidate the Virginia Board of Health.  While what the editorial says is true, it's ironic that the Pilot has condemned Cuccinelli after endorsing congressional GOP candidate Scott Rigell who is every bit as extreme as Kookinelli when it comes to pushing an anti-abortion/anti-woman agenda and seeking to inject Christian extremist religious beliefs into the civil laws.  Here are highlights from the column that focuses on Cuccinrlli's efforts to completely ban all abortion in Virginia:

Political power often tempts elected officials to overreach, but rarely does the abuse of authority cause the kind of injury Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's has inflicted on the state Board of Health.

The board is by law independent. It is authorized to draft regulations. Last month, however, it caved to Cuccinelli's demands to reverse a decision that would have exempted existing abortion clinics from a 2011 law that requires such facilities to meet hospital construction requirements.

The board's reversal will likely require most of the 20 clinics across the commonwealth to undertake expensive renovations to comply with new architectural standards or to be shut down. That is the real goal of Cuccinelli and the anti-abortion activists behind the law.

The 2011 standards aren't about patient safety; otherwise, clinics performing procedures more dangerous than abortion would have been required to meet them. Instead, the standards serve as a back-door strategy for shutting abortion clinics.

The board's reversal - which came after Cuccinelli's office suggested it wouldn't defend board members from lawsuits - inflicted lasting harm on the integrity of Virginia's regulatory system.

Last week, state Health Commissioner Karen Remley resigned in protest.  "That's the kind of collateral damage you get when you start fooling around with politics and not medicine," University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told The Pilot's Julian Walker and Amy Jeter last week.

Remley's departure is a devastating blow to the agency she has led since 2008. But it's also a blow to the people of Virginia. A pediatrician and former hospital administrator at Norfolk's Sentara Leigh, Remley has fulfilled her duties with distinction, pushing to reduce obesity and infant mortality rates, improve communication between public and private health interests and manage preparations for an array of other public health concerns.

Her mission - and her agency's - is designed to be purely nonpartisan. Cuccinelli's interference, however, made that impossible. The health of Virginia's body politic has suffered as a result.

As noted, Kookinelli's religious extremist agenda is shared by Scott Rigell.  Yet earlier in the week the Virginian Pilot endorsed Rigell in what can be best described as a fantasy fiction writing that ignored documented facts and sought to depict Rigell as a moderate.    One reader aptly laid out the truth about Rigell:

Rigell signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge two years ago when he was challenged by the Tea Party and then verbally renounced it when challenged by the moderate Hirschbiel. Both were politically expedient.

He “vowed to avoid blind devotion to partisan interests,” but has “a record of voting 92% of the time with his fellow Republicans,” including:

* For privatizing Medicare and replacing guaranteed benefits with a voucher.

* For repealing health reform, which will cut preventive care and prescription drug benefits for current retirees.

* For a bill that would have re-defined rape as “forcible rape” and restrict access to abortion for victims of statutory rape or incest.

* Against renewal of the Violence Against Women Act.

* Against the DREAM Act.

* For maintaining tax subsidies for oil corporations.

* Against environmental protection 83% of the time.

Does the Virginian-Pilot editorial board agree with Rep. Rigell on these issues? Or do issues not matter?

Oh, and let's not forget that Rigell - shown below laughing it up with a former GOP official who had to resign after circulating racist anti-black "jokes" - has been endorsed by two anti-gay hate groups.  Why the kid glove handling of Rigell?  Frank Batten, Jr., owner of the Virginian Pilot, is a far right Christian supporter who funds Christianist organizations.  Rigell has a history of being in bed with and/or funding such organizations.  Draw your own conclusions.