The Washington Post’s editorial board has done a complete 180 after once calling for Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to resign.
When a medical school yearbook photo of what looked like Northam in either in blackface or a Ku Klux Klan costume came to light earlier this year, the Post was one of many news sources calling for the resignation of the Virginia governor.
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A Complete 180 On Resignation
Northam “can no longer effectively serve the people of Virginia who elected him,” WaPo’s editorial board wrote in February. “His shifting and credulity-shredding explanations for the racist photograph on his medical school yearbook page, and the silence into which he then succumbed for days — after initially promising to do ‘the hard work’ of atonement and apology to restore his standing with Virginians — is simply too much.”
However, in the months since Northam has managed to accomplish “‘the hard work’ of atonement and apology,” at least to the satisfaction of the editors at Washington Post.
“Back when a racist photo first surfaced in his medical school yearbook, most Va lawmakers, our editorial page (and yours truly) said @GovernorVA should resign,” tweeted WaPo political columnist Karen Tumulty. “We were wrong.”
Back when a racist photo first surfaced in his medical school yearbook, most Va lawmakers, our editorial page (and yours truly) said @GovernorVA should resign. We were wrong. https://t.co/bA25YpnWbk
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) December 28, 2019
‘How Ralph Northam came back from the political dead’
The piece published Friday titled “How Ralph Northam came back from the political dead,” describes how “few back-from-the-dead narratives have been as swift and sure-footed as the one Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has managed this year.”
The paper cites Northam’s “astonishingly effective” focus on “racial equity and reconciliation” as having helped redeem him. WaPo also mentioned other factors that led to Northam’s political survival, including the fact that a Republican could have become governor if the top three Democratic leaders fell prey to scandals they were currently involved in.
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WaPo noted, “It helped Mr. Northam that his potential Democratic successors were quickly enmeshed in their own scandals, which shifted the spotlight and forced his party to consider whether it would prefer a Republican governor. (It wouldn’t.)”
“Most potent, it helped that he set himself an agenda on racial equity and pursued it single-mindedly,” the board wrote before listing a few examples, to “comb state law for racist language and provisions.”