The Democratic Party’s zero-tolerance chickens have come home to Virginia to roost.
When Gov. Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook photo was “discovered” last week, Democrats fell over each other to demand his resignation. Among their justifications for the swift judgment was the fact that the lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, is an African-American whose politics are to the left of Northam’s.
It didn’t take long, though, for the same GOP outfit that released the Northam photo to exhume a story about an allegation of sexual assault against Fairfax, one that the Washington Post investigated but did not report on a year ago. Fairfax claims the encounter was consensual, but there have, notably, been no calls from Democrats that “we must believe the woman,” nor has anyone demanded his resignation. Were he and Northam both to do so, the state’s third-ranking elected official, the attorney general, would become governor.
Oops. This morning Virginia AG Mark Herring revealed that he, too, had once dressed in blackface as a rapper for Halloween — in 1980, as a 19-year-old university undergraduate. No word yet on whether Democrats will demand his resignation as well.
So have those whose knees jerked at Northam learned anything yet? Probably not. They probably don’t even understand the incoherent standard they have adopted — that if someone does anything that causes hurt feelings, that person must resign, unless we decide not to be outraged by it, in which case never mind. Justin Fairfax, meet Tom Carper.
The notion that Democrats, and Democrats alone, must not only be above reproach but must always have been so, should be seen for what it is — a tool for discrediting people whose actual ideas and policies you haven’t been able to discredit otherwise. If the people of Virginia had to make out articles of impeachment to remove Northam, they’d have no legitimate grounds for removing him from office. “He lied about who he is” is not only not a crime, it’s a universal business plan for running for office.
As long as Democrats insist on reacting like flustered chumps at every provocation, Republicans will continue to play them for such.