Virginia Pols Show How Biden Can Get Through Handsgate
Two months ago Virginia politics was rocked by a decades-old photograph in Gov. Ralph Northam’s law school yearbook that depicted someone in blackface. That was followed by charges of sexual assault against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and an admission by the attorney general that he had once donned blackface.
The reaction was immediate: Resign, thousands of people said, especially people who also held public office but who, one assumes, did not have to worry about old photos of themselves in blackface or allegations of sexual assault coming to light.
Skip ahead to this week, and many of the same politicians who called for Northam’s head have now made peace with the fact that he’s not going anywhere. Fairfax’s problem is more serious, as actual crime has been alleged, but he’s still in office, too. So what gives?
Some say the whole mess was so exhausting and embarrassing that by the time the legislature adjourned on Feb. 24, the outrage had burned itself out. Others point to polls that showed Virginia voters were considerably less hungry for resignations than their representatives were. “Don’t apologize, move on, and everybody will talk about something else next week,” is how Ben Tribbett, a Democratic strategist, described it. “Maybe we’ve been doing it wrong over the last 100 years.”
Gee, ya think?
That’s pretty much been Trump’s strategy so far. Want to make a scandal disappear? Just give ’em something else to talk about.
“Don’t apologize, move on, and everybody will talk about something else next week,”
Wow. That’s a goddam epihanay. That a real fucking eureka moment. I hope they captured it for the news reels.
At last the Veep never walked in unannounced into the dressing room at the Miss Teen USA Pageant with underage girls in various states of undress.