Keeping 11th District Democrats In The Dark
By Greg L | 14 May 2008 | Virginia Politics, US Congress | 8 Comments
The Manassas Urinal-Massager wrote an article about the recent debate among Democratic Party candidates for the 11th Congressional District, mentioning the principled stance of political neophyte Lori Alexander and the hapless campaign of Doug Denneny, neither of which have any realistic chance at securing the nomination. What the paper did not report was any information about the two candidates that actually have any realistic chance at securing the nomination. When Leslie Byrne and Gerry Connolly actually demonstrate a meaningful difference of opinion on a policy, and one of those two are going to be the nominee, you’d figure the local media would actually report on that.
What they heard didn’t scare them now, did it?
First, here’s how the MJM reported on this part of the debate:
Questions from the crowd varied from how, and how quickly would you get U.S. troops out of Iraq to the candidates opinions’ on illegal immigration and the Prince William County resolution last fall that was designed to combat it.
Of the four candidates, Alexander was the only one to not criticize — directly or indirectly — the county’s resolution that restricts some services to illegal immigrants and requires police to ask the immigration status of someone arrested for a serious or minor offense when there is probable cause to think that the person is in the country illegally.
“Yes, the federal government needs to do something about it …but they [Prince WIlliam police] caught a child molester, an illegal immigrant who molested a 4-year-old child,” Alexander said. “You know what, if that law got a molester off our streets, it’s worth it.”
Conversely, Denneny was adamantly opposed to the resolution.
“I think the legislation that [Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman] Corey Stewart and others passed is abhorrent in 2008,” Denneny said. “The people who are codifying the law [are allowing] some level of racial profiling.”
From what I’ve heard, Gerry Connolly came out against the Rule of Law Resolution, in at least as vociferous terms as Denneny did. Connolly claimed the policy is racist, and he doesn’t like it one bit. There’s not much news there.
What Leslie Byrne did was unexpected, however. Instead of following the typical liberal line, she said she fully understood and sympathized with the concerns in the community about the impacts of illegal immigration because the federal government had utterly failed to address the issue, leaving localities with no other choice than to either watch these impacts continue, or take whatever action they could to stem the tide of illegal aliens into their jurisdictions. She appreciated how frustrated county residents have been about the issue, and said that the way Prince William County dealt with the issue made sense. Although she did not endorse the Rule of Law Resolution, she seems to fully grasp why it was adopted and generally supports local actions to address illegal immigration because there isn’t much in the way of alternatives. Can anyone imagine Leslie Byrne’s ardent supporters at Not Larry Sabato and Raising Kaine saying something like this? Folks, this is news.
Of course neither of these blogs are mentioning what would appear to be a tremendously popular and pretty reasonable position, nor are we to expect that the Manassas Urinal-Massager would ever mention when a Democrat says anything other than what strictly adheres to the open borders party line. Such deviations from the political orthodoxy which absolutely requires the race-hustling approach of folks like Gerry Connolly and Walter Tejada are strictly forbidden, and doubtless Byrne’s position on this issue will receive no coverage whatsoever from her usual supporters. If Democrats start actually having a debate within their party about the wisdom of their support of selective enforcement of the law, and allow folks like Delegate Paul Nichols and Senator Roscoe Reynolds who might have a different take on this issue to have a voice, it might threaten the dominance of Dick Saslaw’s open borders crowd.
But the MJM and Lowell Feld will have none of that. Better to keep Democratic voters in the dark about actual policy differences that define their candidates rather than actually have discussions about which policies make the most sense. Better for Ben Tribbett to rehash pictures of Gerry Connolly in a flag vomit shirt and talk about his personal life than actually let readers know that Democrats don’t march in lock-step against a policy just because Corey Stewart promoted it. This is the same manner that Democrats deal with the abortion issue in their party — pretend that there’s no debate, and shut down anything that might allow an actual discussion on the topic within their party.
Let’s see if Democrats in the 11th District actually have the courage to talk about an important issue that ranks among the top issues within this District. Had not someone in the audience at this debate raised the question, voters would probably never had any opportunity to learn what these candidates believe. The determined silence of the liberal media about the only noteworthy event of the night other than Leslie Byrne’s total dominance in the debate, followed by a blackout to ensure that the real policy differences exposed among their candidates on unapproved policy topics, is a complete disservice to the electorate. Heaven forbid a viable congressional candidate in Virginia utter such blasphemy as a position that coddling illegal alien lawbreakers is bad public policy.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
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I am so sick of your blatant disrespect for the local newspaper. Didn’t you learn anything in kindergarten, Greg??????? Could you please exercise some restraint and call the paper by its proper name?
WAAAAHH. Go have yourself a cry, and send an email to Oprah.
The Urinal-Massager will get respect when it’s earned it. This is a paper that endorsed candidates for re-election before the filing deadline for candidates elapsed, censors information from the police department that is intended to allow the public to identify and turn in crime suspects, regularly reports false and misleading information, and has an editor that is a hair shy of being an open communist.
If Rush Limbaugh can refer to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which has a far better reputation, as the “Atlanta Urinal Constipation”, only someone bemoaning the fall of the Berlin Wall could ever get upset about calling the Journal-Messenger names.
The WaPo’s whining about PWC and Corey Stewart has reached epic proportions. I’m almost enjoying it.
Greg, I would suggest that you listen to the transcript of the debate again and then tell us what you exactly heard/think. I think your source might be a bit off base here in their reporting back to you.
Byrne or Conolly is a bad choice also. They both need to go into retirement.
She has done nothing to help this area and neither has Connelly.
We need new blood running for these offices.
Greg - Again! You offered an outstanding report and commentary on the Democrat Woodbridge “debate.” MJM should “balance” their rag by running your daily blog as a column. The MJM/Potomac News is a disgrace to any standard of open and fair journalism. Why is the “news reporting” in the MJM so shallow and amateur-like if not because of a political agenda?
Considering the source- I am not surprised but for the more objective version of the debate consider watching the entire, unedited discussion and decide for yourself.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4221365807675272390&hl=en
Byrnes comments, summarized:
Federal government is an abject failure with immigration.
It is illegal to hire people who don’t have proper papers.
She understands why localities think they need to act.
But it’s the fed government job, to approach this in a “comprehensive way”.
Then a quote:
“We know that we have both legal and illegal immigration problems. Trying to address one without addressing the other is not going to work. We have to relook at this whole title 8 in the U.S. code, see what is lacking, and make sure we address those issues.”
“I think addressing what Mr. Stewart has done is a fool’s game. He’s done what he’s done, and nobody here is going to apologize for it”.
“The question is, are you going to look for a solution, or are you going to look for blame. And the blame lies in not enforcing the code that is already written. And that’s where we should be looking to fix it”
I transcribed that from the video.