WaPo's Hockstader Hopes to Make 'Macaca' Moment of McDonnell Fundraiser Gaffe

In its never-ending quest to "macaca" Republican Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, the Washington Post has ably illustrated it is far from being a "post-partisan" purveyor of news.

Today in the paper's "Post Partisan" blog, staffer Lee Hockstader displayed once again the paper's determination to help down-in-the-polls liberal Democrat Creigh Deeds limp across the finish line.

Never mind that the offender in question has already apologized for mocking the Democratic state senator -- who, by the way, does NOT have a medically diagnosed speech impediment or disability -- and the alleged "macaca" moment was made not by candidate McDonnell about a Deeds staffer -- which would be truly analogous to the original 2006 George Allen episode -- but by an African-American Democratic businesswoman who supported Obama and current Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D), but crossed the aisle this to back the Republican McDonnell due to his economic policies.

What's more, it's hardly earth-shattering news that people at political fundraisers often crack harsh jokes about the politician(s) they are hoping to defeat on Election Day, yet to Hockstader, Johnson's mocking of Creigh Deeds's less-than-artful oratory deserved a 6-paragraph-long entry about how Johnson is like those mean b****es you knew in high school:

If life is like high school, now we know who Sheila Johnson is: she’s one of the nasty girls who delight in mocking those she deems uncool.

In a campaign appearance on behalf of Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, Johnson, the zillionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television, explained that she’d endorsed him because -- well, because he doesn’t stutter.

In a macaca moment now going viral on YouTube, Johnson mocked McDonnell’s opponent, state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D), by imitating and wildly exaggerating the very slight stammer that characterizes his speech.

In fact, Deeds speaks like most of us -- he starts and restarts sentences, correcting and modifying and adjusting as he goes. But in Johnson’s book, that’s apparently just not cool. Deeds, she said -- when she was finished ridiculing him -- wouldn’t be able to make Virginia’s case to the wider world. McDonnell -- crisp, canned and camera-ready -- is more to her liking.

When rich entertainment TV moguls are mocking decent, self-effacing candidates for public office such as Deeds, you know we've reached some sort of new bottom in the slime wars.

Naturally, Johnson apologized -- not because she cares a whit for Deeds, or Virginia or stutterers, or the other people she offended, but to try to patch her own tarnished reputation. Just like in high school, that’s how the nasty kids roll.

For all his disgust at "how the nasty kids roll," Hockstader doesn't seem to care about the over-the-top nastiness of anti-McDonnell ads run by the Deeds campaign, some of which insist Bob McDonnell has a desire to drive the Old Dominion "back to the Dark Ages."

But then again, with the Washington Post practically aiming to grind McDonnell into the political dungeon, it's not that surprising that Hockstader is holding himself out as a white knight championing civility.