Robert McCartney, columnist for the Washington Post, took a great concept and made it crap today.
Unfortunately, in his column which shows how the leadership in the GOP is starting to listen to the grassroots over the subject of slavery, the Civil War, and the Confederacy, he decided to attack Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for failing to offer an opinion on the matter.
Full disclosure: McCartney also interviewed me on this topic and asked me the “Cuccinelli question”. I should have known where this was going then and posted on it Friday.
I told McCartney that this was really McDonnell’s to comment on, not Cuccinelli, as it was the governor who was the one who made the proclamation and then the subsequent move to recognize the entire picture of the “War Between the States”.
This is the equivalent of saying to someone – “Hey, your boss made a mistake and correction, care to comment?”
Perhaps McDonnell is not Cuccinelli’s boss per se, but clearly he’s part of the state’s administration and the governor’s primary adviser on legal matters. Why cock-up that relationship?
Had Cuccinelli said anything differently, I can see the headline now: “Cuccinelli calls McDonnell’s slavery omission a mistake – GOP showing fracture”. With questions throughout the article: “Is the state’s GOP returning to the days of Jim Gilmore, John Chichester and Russ Potts where the party is showing signs of disunity?”
McCartney had the opportunity to do something so much better and grander in his article.
He had the opportunity to show how grassroots conservatives (particularly Republicans) are offended that the Party of Lincoln has been usurped of our core belief: the equal treatment and freedoms granted to all of us by our creator to pursue our happiness under a limited government.
Instead, he decided to wield a political hatchet. Sad and pathetic.
