Washington Post writer Amy Gardner claimed that she was cued into Bob McDonnell’s thesis because of an interview the paper conducted with him.
“The Washington Post learned of the thesis in a recent interview with McDonnell, who mentioned it in answering a question about his political roots.”
She went onto write “McDonnell brought up the paper in reference to a pair of Republican congressmen whom he interviewed as part of his research. McDonnell then offered: ‘I wrote my thesis on welfare policy.'”
Yet she was very quick to look into the thesis after the interview.
Was this passing comment in the interview that interesting to her? Was it vitally important to her investigative research to learn more about it?
Not likely…especially given this new piece of information:
On Coy Barefoot’s Charlottesville Right Now, towards the end of the show, Lt. Governor Bill Bolling revealed that he learned Democratic operatives were looking into his college work around the time the WaPO story broke.
“I had a call from the president of my college over in Charleston, West Virginia that I attended when I was getting my bachelor’s degree in political science,” said Bolling. “He called to tell me that sure enough there was a researcher or an investigator from the other side digging through the library trying to find something I had written as a college student that they could use against me.”
Bolling said the call came shortly after the story broke, so it’s possible the Democrats were clued into doing this type of oppo-research on the rest of the field after reading the story. However, it’s awfully coincidental.
