It was bad enough when the Virginian-Pilot printed yet another “unemployment benefits” editorial bashing Bob McDonnell months before they will begin their “non-partisan” discussions about whom to endorse, which looks about as difficult to predict as sunrise.
It was bad enough that they’ve relentlessly echoed and amplified negative attacks on McDonnell while consistently bemoaning the negative tenor of campaigns.
It was bad enough that in all these editorials about Obama’s demand that we broaden unemployment to part-timers and pay for it beyond this year, the Pilot always seems to forget to write that it’s about PART-TIMERS. (they LOVE writing about 300,000 unemployed Virginians, but haven’t decided to tell their readers that they already have extended benefits. Obama wants us to add 8,000 part-timers. You’ll see the Pilot purposely use full-time unemployment numbers to justify a part-time unemployment issue – and if McDonnell was as misleading as the Pilot is, the Pilot would relentlessly criticize it.)
But today took the cake.
They complain that McDonnell opposes card check, saying
“Every time Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell is criticized for his position on jobless benefits, members of his campaign seem to retort with two words: “card check!”…
What’s harder to understand is why McDonnell keeps insisting the issue is somehow connected to the Employee Free Choice Act,”
Must not be too hard to understand, because a few paragraphs down, the Pilot does EXACTLY the same thing. After writing “The two issues are entirely separate,” they connect them.
“Among the most serious flaws in the card-check bill is a provision allowing a federal arbitrator to impose a labor contract on a workplace when negotiations break down. This page noted the dangers inherent in that proposal, arguing that “politics would play too big a role at the workplace” if it became law.
Our abhorrence for political intrusions into workplace issues was likewise triggered by last month’s vote to turn down funding for unemployment assistance.”
How insane do you have to be to complain when a candidate connects two issues by saying the two issues are separate, and then suddenly decide they are connected and write a few paragraphs about how connected they are?
Why not just print your endorsement now with a blank space next to “to be decided in a June 9th Primary.”
It would be a lot better than their next editorial about unemployment, which if the pattern holds will likely go to print this weekend.
