Washington Free Beacon Scoop Spurs WashPost Double Standard on Slavery Comparisons

On Thursday, The Washington Post's Metro section put the Democrats' choice of “news” on the front page. “Democrats keep focus on abortion in Va. Race.” Post reporter Laura Vozzella relayed their outrage that GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli was caught by a Democrat tracker describing abortion as a moral evil like slavery, as did one of his big financial backers, the Susan B. Anthony List. 

On Friday, after the Washington Free Beacon reported that Cuccinelli's Democrat opponent Terry McAuliffe kept silent in 2008 as his candidate Hillary Clinton compared slavery to – get this – stripping Democrat convention delegates of their vote in two states, the Post put that Laura Vozzella story on B3. The Free Beacon headline was “McAuliffe Supported Slavery Comparisons Before He Opposed Them.”

The WFB showed a Fox News Sunday interview from May 25, 2008.

CHRIS WALLACE: This week Senator Clinton compared the decision to strip Florida and Michigan of all of their delegates to slavery, to the election in Zimbabwe where a dictator is trying to hold onto power, to the recount in Florida. Does she really see parallels there?

TERRY McAULIFFE: What she sees is 2.5 million people who went to polls, who voted, who were certified at the county and at the state level. We are not a nation of 48 states. We’re a nation of 50 states. We have to make sure — they have already paid a price, these two states. The rule worked. Other states didn’t move up. We got to protect the sanctity of Iowa and New Hampshire. They paid a huge price. Nobody campaigned in their states.

Now we need to look toward the November election. We have to win Florida and Michigan. These are key states for us in the electoral college. We can’t have 2.5 million people who went and voted.

Vozzella said McAuliffe "ducked the question." The text suggests he was defending her analogy as rational...without using the S-word.

When the Post asked the McAuliffe camp for a response, there was no direct answer. (His real answer might be "hey, we were a few days from throwing in the towel and supporting Obama, so Hillary was just swinging a little crazy as she accepted defeat.") But the Post was willing to publish another attack on Cuccinelli:

“Ken Cuccinelli’s comments reflect an entire career he has dedicated to an extreme and dangerous agenda of trying to make abortion illegal even in the cases of rape or incest and trying to limit birth-control access,” said McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin.

Here's what the Post isn't willing to do: admit Terry McAuliffe is extremely pro-abortion. The Post and Laura Vozzella should put their heads together and ask if there is any limit to abortion on demand (including taxpayer funding of abortions) that Terry McAuliffe favors before they just act as Democrat publicists. It's somehow front-page news when "In the space of seven hours Wednesday, Democrats blasted five different news releases on the abortion-slavery flap, on top of the two they had issued the day before."

They somehow didn't find McAuliffe newsworthy when he appeared at the annual dinner of NARAL Pro-Choice America on February 6. The only Post mention of McAuliffe next to NARAL and Planned Parenthood over the last six months came in a March 1 piece by Errin Haines that underlined how these groups want to "Keep Ken Out," but slyly focused quotes from both left and right on Cuccinelli's "extreme" stands, not McAuliffe's. 

The Post can pick on the Susan B. Anthony List, but it wouldn't quote them on McAuliffe, so check out what quotes are left out of the Post:

Today, the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) slammed NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia and Planned Parenthood, two groups backing Terry McAuliffe and supporting abortion on-demand for any reason, up until the moment of birth. This extreme agenda puts these groups and Terry McAuliffe well outside the mainstream of Virginians. Among other things, Planned Parenthood’s political arm—working directly with the McAuliffe campaign—has retweeted attacks on Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and has called the loving father of five girls (and two boys) and a devoted husband a “misogynist.”

“Groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood—whose support Terry McAuliffe wholeheartedly embraces—support extreme policies that fall well outside the mainstream in Virginia and the country,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “So committed have these groups become to abortion at any stage for any reason that they refuse to support even the limits that overwhelming majorities embrace, such as bans on sex-selection abortion and late-term abortions past the point at which unborn children are known to feel pain. Never mind that national polling shows these regulations are supported by an astounding 77 and 63 percent of Americans, respectively -- with support even higher among women. Who's the radical here?"