When it comes to politicians' foibles and faux pas, the mainstream media's double standard is nothing new, but the Washington Post's recent coverage of the Virginia governor's race takes the cake. Republican gubernatorial candidate and current State Attorney General Bob McDonnell has been trouncing his Democratic opponent, State Sen. Creigh Deeds, in the polls for much of the campaign. So the Post has now dredged up a 20-year-old academic paper McDonnell wrote for a conservative Christian college in which he condemns homosexual behavior, criticizes feminism for being anti-family, and questions the effect on the family of the mass movement of women into the workforce.
McDonnell says he's changed his mind on some of the issues he wrote about when he was seeking a public policy degree -- especially on women in the workforce -- and his record as a state legislator and attorney general doesn't suggest he's ever used his office to punish gays, working women or feminists. But the Post is having none of it. In a particularly snotty piece, editorial writer Ruth Marcus complains that McDonnell can't "explain away" his views, noting "(t)here are so many delicious aspects to the McDonnell uproar."