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| Democrat Circular Firing Squad. |
Virginia continues to be in a state of political chaos and unflattering national scrutiny as all three of its top elected officials - Governor Northam, Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring - find themselves embroiled in controversy. A piece in CNN looks at the chaos but, in my view, fails to place blame where it lies, which is not on Governor Ralph Northam or the other targets of a far right Republican operatives. Here's what CNN says as far as it goes:
In the last six days, the following things have happened:· Gov. Ralph Northam said he was in a picture in his medical school yearbook of two people -- one in blackface, the other in KKK robes. He then recanted and said he wasn't in that picture. But he added that he *had* darkened his face to look more like Michael Jackson for a dance contest in 1984.
· A woman named Vanessa Tyson accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of assaulting her during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax angrily denied the allegations. Then on Wednesday Tyson released a statement, in which she said in part "what began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault."
· State Attorney General Mark Herring, in a statement released Wednesday morning, acknowledged that he, too, had appeared in blackface at a party. "In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song," Herring said.
What the CNN piece fails to do is (i) link these disclosures back to a far right, Trump supporting "news" outlet, and (ii) focus on how the Democrats have stupidly engaged in a circular firing squad -just as the GOP anticipated they would do - and blown the situation all out of proportion. In short, in my view, the ultimate blame lies on Democrat office holders (the Legislative Black Caucus in particular), including a number of out of state would be presidential candidates who improperly and ignorantly injected themselves into Virginia politics (think Julián Castro, Elizabeth Warren - who has her own new crisis - and Kamala Harris). Indeed, I would summarize the series of events since last Friday as follows:
Watching how the GOP operatives at Big League Politics set this in motion and how the Democrats took the bait hook, line and sinker and set themselves up to potentially put a racist homophobe (in the form of House of Delegates Speaker Cox) has been horrifying to watch. Everyone, starting with the Legislative Black Caucus, rushed to judge, looked for every possible slight and never took a deep breath or stopped to consider the bigger picture and the strange coincidence of the timing of the political hit jobs. Once Northam and Fairfax were targeted, I knew something would be dug up on Herring. Since Herring announced his own "sin" first today, I believe he must have known the GOP operative were about to expose him.
As regular readers I know both Northam and Herring - Northam is a personal friend - and neither of these men is a racist. Stupid perhaps in their youth, but not racists. Cox is a whole different story. Three years of Speaker Cox as governor would be a disaster for LGBT Virginians and black Virginians - and most other Virginia.
In the last few days I've been attacked as a racist "gray old man" wanting to protect "white privilege" by some. But having been in the political game longer than many of these young upstarts who have attacked me have been alive, I know just how dirty and foul the GOP plays. I left the GOP almost 20 years ago, but in my days as a city committee member for the GOP for eight years, I saw up close just how dirty the far right was willing to play. I wanted no part of the politics of personal destruction, deliberate lies and, in my view, moral bankruptcy, so I left the GOP. But I did not forget what I had observed. Sadly, no one in the Democrat Party wanted to listen to my analysis and warnings.
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