Randy Forbes, the Virginina Pilot and Me

I ran into Randy Forbes last night and – while I have had my differences with the Congressman in the past – I felt compelled to shake his hand. You see he has done two things that reconciled him to me. First, he gave a great speech at the Republican Grass Roots dinner recently outlining the challenges America faces in the coming decades. It was thoughtful and acknowledged global realities.

Randy gives a great speech; he always does.

The second thing that endeared him to me was a mean-spirited editorial (read lie) that ran in the Virginian Pilot that was basically a hatchet job on Randy.

U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes seemed a bit confused when he took to the floor of the House of Representatives last week.

Apparently believing that a resolution under consideration forbade the allies from invading Normandy, and gave comfort to the traitors at DailyKos.com and to anti-war turncoats, Forbes unleashed a five-minute tirade designed to save America from the Nazis.

This is what passes for sarcasm or wit among the Pilot's editorial staff.

Today the Pilot wrote a small correction on the editorial page that sort-of retracted the smear. As with all MSM retractions, it was barely noticeable and much shorter. In fact if you did not know the original editorial you wondered what the retraction was about. But that’s the way things are done in that dying dinosaur known as the “drive-by media.” No link is available because the Pilot did not put this retraction on-line. So the original smear is there and the "correction" is on the dead tree version.

After I referred to the Pilot editorial, Randy told me a little story. It seems that the Pilot asked him to appear before the editorial staff during one of his campaigns. He rejected their offer. They asked “don’t you want our endorsement?” He told them that an endorsement by the Pilot would swing about 18% of the voters toward a candidate … but would swing 19% against the candidate.

Based on a poll of one – myself – an endorsement from the Pilot almost invariably means that I vote against that candidate unless I know them personally.

And if the Pilot sopports them and I support them, I begin to question my judgement.

It's nice to know why the Pilot decided to smear Randy in that editorial. You can't diss the people who buy ink by the barrel. If that happened, the universe would fall into confusion.

The fact is that the Pilot mainlines raw sewage – toxic waste – into the veins of the body politic on a daily basis. The sooner that dinosaur becomes extinct the better.