Well, it seems support for late-term abortion is what created the fiasco that has embroiled Virginia’s Democratic governor. Pretty much everyone has besieged Gov. Ralph Northam, especially within his own party. They’re urging him to resign after a yearbook photo from his days at Eastern Virginia Medical School was unearthed last week. The picture shows two men donning racist costumes on his 1984 page. One is wearing blackface while the other figure donned Ku Klux Klan garb. Northam apologized for the photo, admitting he was in it last Friday night. He did not specify which person he was in the photo. Was he the KKK man or the blackface dude?
On Saturday, the dumpster fire grew when Northam retracted his apology, saying that wasn’t him in the photo. Then, he admitted to doing blackface, saying he dressed as Michael Jackson in the past. So, Northam’s defense is ‘the photo on my yearbook page that shows someone in blackface isn’t me, but I’ve done blackface before whose pictures haven’t been seen.’
This all started when Northam pretty much endorsed infanticide during a radio interview, where he was asked about a bill proposed by House Delegate Kathy Tran, also a Democrat, who wanted to permit abortion virtually up until the moment of birth. It was an atrocious bill, similar to the legislation recently passed in New York.
If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” he said. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Thankfully, it was rejected, but the fallout reportedly stemmed from these remarks. The Washington Post interviewed Patrick Howley of Big League Politics, who got the scoop on the yearbook photo. He told the publication a former classmate of Northam’s tipped him off. The reason: Northam’s comments about abortion (via WaPo) [emphasis mine]:
The reporter who exposed the racist photo on Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook page said a “concerned citizen” led him to the story that has prompted widespread outrage and calls for the Democrat’s resignation.
Patrick Howley, editor in chief of the website Big League Politics, first reported Friday the existence of a photo on Northam’s page of his medical school yearbook depicting a figure in blackface standing next to another person in a Ku Klux Klan hood.
“It’s very easy to explain,” Howley, 29, said in an interview Saturday. “A concerned citizen, not a political opponent, came to us and pointed this out. I was very offended [by the photo] because I don’t like racism.”
The tip came after Northam’s comments on Wednesday about late-term abortions, he said. Howley declined to give any further information about his source, citing a confidentiality agreement. But he said it took him just a few hours to confirm that the photo was authentic.
The source of the tip appears to have been a medical school classmate or classmates of Northam who acted as a direct result of the abortion controversy that erupted earlier in the week, according to two people at Big League Politics, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Northam has refused to resign, so you know this circus will continue this week.