WaPo's Descent into Hackery Continues

Last month, the editors at the Washington Post didn't bat an eye at two op-eds—one of which masqueraded as objective reporting—labeling as "racists" people who appreciated the Obama as Joker poster and calling healthcare protesters "terrorists."

This month, the paper has gone into full attack mode on Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell. According to NewsBusters, the Washington Post has run six articles in four days on McDonnell's 20 year-old masters thesis.

The Washington Post on Wednesday increased its frenzied attack on Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, featuring two stories in the paper’s Metro section, an op-ed and a cartoon. Including opinion pieces, the Post has delivered six articles in four days on the Republican's 1989 master’s thesis about families and government policy.

In an article with the loaded title "McDonnell Tries to Salvage Women’s Votes," Rosalind S. Helderman and Sandhya Somashekhar described how the candidate is trying to "help rebuild his relationship with the key voting bloc, damaged in recent days by the publication of his 1989 master's thesis."

I noticed the article this morning and the whole thing is a hit-job (can you say "Macaca"?) from top to bottom and right up to the manufactured damage to a "key voting bloc." In fact, McDonnell's numbers are holding where they were a month ago.

To the Washington Post editors' great dismay (and the likely reason why they're running article on top of article about this) few care all that greatly about an ancient thesis which doesn't reflect the candidate's current views or the track record he's built for the past decades:

The survey was conducted shortly after news stories broke about a thesis paper written by McDonnell in 1989. The thesis reflected very conservative views on the role of women in society and other topics. To this point, just 49% of Likely Voters say they’ve followed news stories on this topic even somewhat closely. Twenty-four percent (24%) say they’ve followed the stories Very Closely.

Thirty-six percent (36%) say the writings are at least somewhat important in terms of how they will vote. Forty-nine percent (49%) say they’re not important. Nearly half of all Democrats consider the thesis important while two-thirds of Republicans say they are not. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 32% say the writings are important including 18% who say they are Very Important.

Wah wah waaah.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 04:34 PM

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