Virginian-Pilot calls Obama’s plan “nakedly political”

The Virginian-Pilot gave up endorsing for President in 2008. If today’s editorial is any indication, Obama would have trouble earning it if the Pilot changed for 2012.

The Virginian-Pilot severely criticized Obama’s jobs program as nothing more than a political move and not a serious proposal.

Instead of employing the so-called “balanced approach” to deficit reduction that he has touted throughout the past year, the president’s proposal relied on tax increases alone. Worse, Obama proposed a series of well-worn measures that Congress has rejected over and over again.

If the president’s proposal was a political feint, it would be bad enough – divisive and a waste of everyone’s time. If it was a serious effort at creating jobs, the president would be better off leaving that to somebody else.

Ouch!

Although the Pilot doesn’t outright reject government stimulus as an economic strategy, it goes far in making the point that this is nothing more than a political brochure and not real leadership.

As the Pilot mentions upcoming cutbacks to its news operations with fewer pages and cutting costs, several editorials of late have had a curiously conservative tinge.

If that is due to a new subtle change in marketing, a realization by their own economic troubles that spending doesn’t solve problems, or that outgoing liberal editorial writers have been replaced by people more to the right, I don’t know.

What I do know is the Pilot has been decidedly further right than I have seen it in a long, long time.

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About the author

Brian Kirwin

The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.