WaPo: McDonnell Should Denounce Robertson; Paper Praised Obama's Quasi-Repudiation of Wright

Three days ago, I argued that the Washington Post was ginning up a new campaign to discredit Republican governor-elect Bob McDonnell, having failed to sink his candidacy  by its continual harping about his culturally conservative graduate's thesis at Pat Robertson's Regent University.

Today the Post confirmed my suspicions as its editorial board officially weighed in, proclaiming Robertson -- who made some controversial statements following the Fort Hood shootings about Islam -- to be "Mr. McDonnell's albatross":

It's unfair to expect politicians to be held accountable for every asinine thing that a supporter happens to say. But in this case -- when the supporter is among Mr. McDonnell's most prominent associates, and the level of support is extremely high -- it's important to know that he is as disgusted by Mr. Robertson's casual bigotry as millions of his constituents are. 

This begs the question how the Post handled the Obama/Rev. Wright controversy. My research indicates the Post was thrilled at Obama's March 2008 non-denunciation denunciation of Wright so much that the next month it all but declared it would never hound Obama ever again for anything stupid Wright should say. Let's look first at the March 19, 2008 "Moment of Truth" editorial (emphases mine):

SEN. BARACK Obama's mission in Philadelphia yesterday was to put the controversy over inflammatory statements made by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his spiritual mentor and pastor for 20 years, behind him. But Mr. Obama (D-Ill.) went deeper than that. He used his address as a teachable moment, one in which he addressed the pain, anger and frustration of generations of blacks and whites head-on -- and offered a vision of how those experiences could be surmounted, if not forgotten. It was a compelling answer both to the challenge presented by his pastor's comments and to the growing role of race in the presidential campaign. 

[...]

He went on to say that the comments weren't just controversial, "they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -- a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with American above all that we know is right with America." 

Yet Mr. Obama didn't condemn the Rev. Wright even as he rejected his rhetoric. Instead, he placed the 66-year-old pastor into historical context: "For the men and women of Rev. Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years." He added, "But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races." 

[...]

Mr. Obama's speech was an extraordinary moment of truth-telling. He coupled it with an appeal that this year's campaign not be dominated by distorted and polarizing debates about whether he or his opponents agree with extreme statements by supporters -- or other attempts to divide the electorate along racial lines. Far better, he argued, that Americans of all races recognize they face common economic, social and security problems. We don't agree with the way Mr. Obama described some of those problems yesterday or with some of his solutions for them. But he was right to condemn the Rev. Wright's words, was eloquent in describing the persistent challenge of race and racism in American society -- and was right in proposing that this year's campaign rise above "a politics that breeds division and conflict and cynicism."

Rev. Wright was not condemned, but merely his words, and then-Sen. Obama gave everyone a "teachable moment" in race relations, the Post gushed. The paper was positively ecstatic, so much so that a month later, after Wright spouted off with more craziness, the editorial board slammed "The Audacity of Rev. Wright" in an April 29 editorial, where it practically declared any present and future Wright controversies to be unworthy of the Post pressing Obama for comment (emphasis mine):

Yesterday, the Rev. Wright was unrepentant. He refused to disavow his oft-repeated belief in the sinister myth that the AIDS epidemic is a genocidal government plot to exterminate African Americans. He stood by his blame-America-for-Sept. 11 stance, saying, "You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back to you." 

None of this is helpful to Mr. Obama, who could face more calls not only to denounce such inflammatory comments but also to renounce his longtime pastor. We will not join in that chorus. In his address on race in Philadelphia last month after video of the Rev. Wright's fiery sermons burst onto the national scene, Mr. Obama condemned, "in unequivocal terms, the statements of Rev. Wright that have caused such controversy." The candidate credibly explained how he could understand his minister's anger without sharing or approving of it. Having had a closer look at the Rev. Wright, voters will have to decide for themselves how much weight to give Mr. Obama's long association with the pastor. But it is the Rev. Wright, not Mr. Obama, who yesterday chose to further discredit himself.

Under this standard, Governor-elect McDonnell could craft an Obamaesque speech in which he kind of, sort of, but doesn't really condemn Pat Robertson, all while placing the 79-year-old televangelist in his "historical context" as a "teachable moment" for voters.

Of course, if McDonnell did exactly that, he'd be roundly excoriated by the Washington Post. And even if McDonnell should come out and actually, roundly and unequivocally, condemn Robertson, I'm not putting any money on the Post being consistent and dismissing future Robertson eruptions as matters that McDonnell must address.