The least likely congressional candidate to ever interest The Washington Post might be a Democrat thinking they can beat Steny Hoyer, the House minority whip from southern Maryland. This completely quixotic campaign can only be interesting if....the candidate’s a Navy SEAL who thinks he’s a woman.
On the front page of Style is a picture of Christopher “Kristin” Beck, hesitating in the shadows before ringing a doorbell in a suburban neighborhood asking for votes. The headline is “From Navy SEAL to congresswoman?”
Ben Terris unloads all the reasons why the Post would never cover this: “Beck, 48, almost certainly isn’t going to win. She doesn’t have much name recognition or money. She doesn’t even have the backing of the major gay and transgender advocacy groups. They have hesitations about her propensity to offend parts of the community and take issue with her attempt to oust Hoyer, a staunch ally for LGBT rights.”
Terris even ventured to add “Two years ago, Beck publicly came out as a woman, but by her account she still ‘looks like a dude in a dress.”’
Terris added, “she’s running for Congress — not so much as a transgender candidate as a candidate who happens to be transgender.” This notion is preposterous, that Beck would get any publicity for this effort opposing the second most powerful Democrat in the House in a Democratic rag like the Post.
As usual, there is absolutely no one in the story that questions the wonderfulness of the transgender agenda. There’s no conservative sass machine to insist which is more delusional? That Beck pretends to be a woman, or pretends he has any chance of winning this election?
But he was a military hero:
Her house is a museum exhibit of her life. Twenty-nine medals from her years of service hang in a glass encasement by the window — an acknowledgment of hundreds of clandestine missions and dozens of captures and kills. Her abstract paintings of wild seascapes scatter the shelves with quotes scrawled on the back: “Even Heroes Rust and Break.” There’s a photograph in her kitchen from her SEAL days of a bushy-bearded Christopher. To blend in with the mujahideen, Christopher wore a wool Pashtun cap and a baggy brown vest. A disguise upon a disguise.
“I’ve been Conan [the Barbarian], and I’ve been Barbie,” she said, pointing to the photograph. “But both parts make up who I am.”
According to Beck and the Post, his marriage fell apart because he kept volunteering for more heroic tours of duty to escape his “real self.”
He joined the Navy SEALs, got married to his first wife, Shelly, and had two boys. He deployed 13 times, including a stint in Bosnia just two days after his wedding. He was reckless, running headfirst into battles, unsure of whether he wanted to live or die, knowing he wasn’t being true to who she was. Each time he returned stateside, he came home angry.
That's the passage Terris took to his Twitter page. The Post also used the liberal tilt of CNN’s documentary unit to explain their own news judgment on this story:
She transitioned in 2013 to a wave of publicity. A former member of SEAL Team Six coming out as a woman made for good television. Anderson Cooper interviewed her in prime time on CNN, and the network later made a 90-minute documentary about her journey called Lady Valor. She covered up her biker-gang tattoo with a ladybug, quit her job as a military consultant and hit the road to make her living lecturing about human rights.
The biggest tilt toward balance – and it’s not big – is the brief note that Beck offends her fellow LGBT allies by not marching to political correctness.
Many activists found Beck’s disparaging comments about Chelsea Manning (“If Bradley is truly ‘Chelsea’ then ‘she’ is a traitor to ME,” Beck wrote on Facebook) and Jenner (“He’s no hero,” Beck said in a TV appearance, raising an eyebrow about the reality star’s likely financial windfall) to be counterproductive.
PS: Here's an easy illustration of how Beck is being favored with this prominent Post attention. Hoyer's Republican opponent in 2012 was Tony O'Donnell, a member of the Maryland state legislature. This is the entirety of his press coverage in 2012, according to a Nexis search: a brief profile in a voter's guide on the Thursday before the election (November 1):
Tony O'Donnell (R)
Age: 51
Residence: Southern Maryland.
Education: BS, liberal studies, Regents College, New York.
Occupation: Member, Maryland House of Delegates.
Elected offices/civic activities: Past board member, Drum Point Road Co.; Maryland House of Delegates, 1995-present.
What is the most urgent problem facing your jurisdiction? "Like the rest of the country, Southern Maryland faces the urgent need for job creation and getting control of the federal budget."
Why should voters elect you? "I represent genuine change for the better after 31 years of representation by the incumbent."
This is precisely the same kind of coverage given to Bob Auerbach, the 92-year-old Green Party candidate, and Arvin Vohra, the 33-year-old Libertarian “contender.”
