Scrutiny Spreads to '03 McDonnell Remarks
'Homosexual Conduct' Comments 'Irrelevant' to Campaign, He Says
By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
In January 2003, then-Del. Robert F. McDonnell helped gavel in one of the most extraordinary judicial reappointment hearings in Virginia history: a seven-hour, trial-like affair that led to questions about whether the future Republican gubernatorial candidate thought gays were fit to serve on the bench.
As chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee, McDonnell sat at the head of the proceedings, with his Senate counterpart next to him and committee members on both sides. Facing them was Verbena M. Askew of Newport News, the state's first black female Circuit Court judge, whose reappointment was in jeopardy because of allegations that she had sexually harassed a female colleague.
Amid accusations of racism and homophobia, state lawmakers grilled Askew and several witnesses for hours, focusing in large part on her failure to disclose the harassment case. Some members also raised questions about her actions from the bench. A majority, including McDonnell, voted against her reappointment.
In comments before the hearing, McDonnell indicated that Askew's sexual conduct was relevant, telling one newspaper that "certain homosexual conduct" could disqualify a person from being a judge because it violates the state's crimes against nature law. The words were widely published at the time, and his remarks contributed to a lasting view that sexual orientation was at least one reason for Askew's ouster.
McDonnell said in an interview last week that the episode has nothing to do with his campaign for governor.
"It is 100 percent irrelevant in this race," he said. "What's relevant in this race is what the records of the candidates are on issues that the voters care about and, number two, who's got the best ideas to be able to create jobs and build infrastructure and build a better Virginia. That's what's relevant."
McDonnell's role in the hearing has attracted renewed scrutiny after the publication last week of a 1989 graduate school thesis in which the 14-year lawmaker and former attorney general had criticized working mothers and homosexuals and urged the promotion of traditional values through government. In one passage, McDonnell wrote: "Man's basic nature is inclined towards evil, and when the exercise of liberty takes the shape of pornography, drug abuse, or homosexuality, the government must restrain, punish, and deter."
McDonnell has dismissed his thesis as a "20-year-old document" and an "academic exercise" with no bearing on a political campaign that ought to be focused on jobs, road improvements and public schools. He said some of his views have changed since he wrote the thesis while earning public policy and law degrees at what is now Regent University in Virginia Beach. And he emphasized that he has never viewed sexual orientation as a relevant factor in hiring decisions or fitness for public office.
McDonnell said he joined the majority in voting Askew off the bench for several reasons: The City of Hampton, where she had established a drug court and where her accuser worked, had settled the harassment claim for $64,000. A Virginia Employment Commission hearing officer found that the accuser, Brenda Collins, was forced to resign her job in part because of retaliation. And in surveys, local lawyers had expressed dissatisfaction with Askew's courtroom performance.
McDonnell was credited by Republicans and Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly at the time for making sure witnesses supporting Askew were present at the hearing.
He also became known for telling the Daily Press of Newport News that certain homosexual activities could disqualify a person from the bench. "It certainly raises some questions about the qualifications to serve as a judge," he said.
"There is certain homosexual conduct that is in violation of the law," McDonnell added. "I'm not telling you I would disqualify a judge per se if he said he was gay. I'm talking about their actions."
McDonnell said through a spokesman last week that the quotes are not accurate, and the candidate repeated that assertion Friday.
At the time, McDonnell did not deny the comments, which were reprinted by several other papers, but he told the Virginian-Pilot that they were "inartful." He added, "What I told [the reporter] is if there was evidence, proven evidence like a criminal conviction, of a violation of the law, any criminal law, those things would need to be taken into consideration to determine the fitness for reappointment."
McDonnell also told the Virginian-Pilot: "Homosexuality is not an issue with regard to the qualifications of a judge. I imagine we have gay judges on the bench now. That's not a material inquiry."
Terry Scanlon, the Daily Press reporter who interviewed McDonnell, and Ernie Gates, the newspaper's editor, both said last week that McDonnell never complained about the quotation's accuracy.
Scanlon, who now lives in Colorado and is no longer a reporter, also remembers asking McDonnell whether he had ever violated the crimes against nature statute himself -- a fair question, he thought, because McDonnell had raised the legal point. The statute, among other things, prohibits oral or anal sexual contact, regardless of the sex of the participants. McDonnell's response, Scanlon reported, was: "Not that I can recall."
In the subsequent interview with the Virginian-Pilot, McDonnell dismissed his answer as a "flippant" response to a "shocking" and "unfair" question. In political circles, it was a widely disseminated remark, and it came to symbolize, some said, McDonnell's role in the Askew affair.
"Bob was the only one that I remember who at the time described his position on the case in relation to her sexual orientation," said Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), who was then the state's lieutenant governor and president of the Senate.
Kaine, who is also chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a supporter of McDonnell's Democratic opponent, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds of Bath, noted that the Askew affair is not McDonnell's only intervention regarding sexual orientation. In addition to pushing a state constitutional amendment requiring that marriage can occur only between a man and a woman, McDonnell intervened to oppose Kaine's first act as governor in 2006: to expand the state's nondiscrimination policy to include sexual orientation.
McDonnell argued at the time that his concern was strictly a legal one -- that Kaine's action was one for the legislature, not the governor, and thus violated the state constitution's separation of powers provision.
Deeds was not a member of the courts committee, but he said last week that he remembers hearing extensively of the Askew hearing. "It seems to me kind of odd that, six years after the fact, he's getting around to saying he was misquoted," Deeds said of McDonnell.
In an interview last week, Askew denied being gay, as she always has. She also denied harassing Collins and noted that she was not a party to the city's settlement. She also said the state bar dismissed a complaint about her failure to disclose the harassment settlement to lawmakers. She said she believes that McDonnell chose to become involved for political reasons.
"This was a local issue," said Askew, now in private law practice. "He shouldn't have been in it. Nobody asked him to get in that process. He did that himself, and he did it to promote his social issues."
Two Republican colleagues of McDonnell's in the legislature, Sens. Kenneth W. Stolle of Virginia Beach and Thomas K. Norment Jr. of James City County, confirmed that McDonnell was eager for his committee to participate in the hearing despite their view that the Senate could conduct the proceeding without House involvement. Norment represented part of Newport News and, as a lawyer, had fielded numerous complaints about Askew's judicial conduct, he said. Stolle was chairman of the Senate Courts Committee.
"I cautioned him," Stolle recalled. "I said, 'Bob, you know you want to run for attorney general. I assure you that nothing good is going to come from this.' . . . And Bob came back and said several of his [colleagues] had contacted him, and wanted to know what was going on, and wanted to know why they hadn't taken part."
Staff writer Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Bob McDonnell hates women, gays and especially gay women...
McDonnell Thesis: What does it say?
Governor's Race Erupts Over McDonnell's Past Views
By Amy Gardner, Rosalind S. Helderman and Anita Kumar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Virginia governor's race ignited Monday over Republican Robert F. McDonnell's 20-year-old graduate thesis: Democrats assailed him in e-mail blasts and interviews for what he wrote about working women, homosexuals and "fornicators," and McDonnell tried to explain his views to crucial moderate and female voters.
After a sleepy summer filled with rural RV tours and policy papers on energy and the economy, news of the thesis, first reported Sunday in The Washington Post, pushed the race to a fever pitch.
McDonnell's opponent, Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, bombarded state and national media with details of the thesis, submitted by McDonnell in 1989 for a master of arts in public policy and juris doctorate in law from Regent University in Virginia Beach.
McDonnell, meanwhile, spoke by telephone to reporters for nearly 90 minutes, saying that his views have changed on many of the issues he explored as a graduate student. He also released a list of women who support his campaign.
"I'm disappointed but not surprised that my opponent wants to make this a central issue in the campaign," said McDonnell, the former state attorney general and a 14-year veteran of the House of Delegates. "During my years in the General Assembly, Senator Deeds would suggest that I have this undue focus on social issues. That's just a flat misrepresentation."
In the thesis, "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of The Decade," McDonnell described working women as "detrimental" to the traditional family. He criticized a U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing contraception for unmarried couples and decried the "purging" of religion from schools. He advocated character education programs in public schools to teach "traditional Judeo-Christian values," and he criticized federal tax credits for child care expenditures because they encouraged women to enter the workforce.
In his call with reporters Monday, a calm and prepared McDonnell explained in detail how he feels about issues that include gay rights, abortion and women's rights. He mentioned several times that on some issues he agrees with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), the state's first Catholic governor, as well as with President Obama.
McDonnell said he still believes marriage should be limited to one man and one woman but thinks that discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation or marital status has no place in government or on the job. He said that he no longer agrees with what he wrote about women in the workforce and that regardless of his personal views, he "would follow the law," as he did as attorney general.
With a recent Washington Post poll giving McDonnell a substantial lead, Deeds and other Democrats sought Monday to shift the momentum.
McDonnell has focused his campaign on job creation, a message that has resonated with pro-business moderates. On Monday, Democrats focused on McDonnell's conservatism.
The Deeds campaign sent out a fundraising appeal with the thesis as its main focus. The state Democratic Party produced a video, "Bob McDonnell's Secret Blueprint for Virginia," setting a news report about the document to driving, apocalyptic classical music. And Kaine, who is chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said that after years of working with McDonnell in Richmond, he was "not surprised" by what he read in the thesis.
"To me, it seems like kind of a blueprint of, 'Here's what I hope to do as an elected official,' and I think he's been working diligently to do that," Kaine said.
The story quickly spread on liberal blogs, including Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post. By late afternoon, more than 70 blogs had picked up the thread.
Democrats have long attempted to characterize McDonnell as an ultra-conservative who is playing down his views on such issues as abortion, school prayer and gay rights so as not to alienate moderate voters, particularly in Northern Virginia, who increasingly decide statewide elections.
But McDonnell's public record and his reputation among colleagues paint a more complex portrait. He appears as a man with deeply conservative views that spring from a strong Catholic faith but also as reasonable, open-minded and increasingly focused on such issues as jobs and transportation.
"What I found in him is exactly what I found in Tim Kaine: A man with a considerable intellect, who is prepared to think and rethink constantly," said Randal J. Kirk, who was Kaine's biggest individual donor in 2005. Kirk said he is considering a donation to McDonnell.
By disavowing earlier views on working women and the traditional family and saying little on abortion and gay marriage, McDonnell is choosing to appeal to moderates and suburban women -- but might alienate the conservative base.
"There are three ways to lose," said Patrick M. McSweeney, a former state GOP chairman and a standard-bearer of the party's right wing. "One is you can state a position that is controversial and offend a lot of people. Second, you can not take a position and offend people who want leaders. And third, you can back away from a previously held view. But the worst thing to do is to lose votes in all three of those areas."
The reaction of women and moderates was hard to measure Monday. Democratic legislative candidates in Northern Virginia said they were stunned at the number of voters they encountered who had read about the thesis and were dismayed by it. The Deeds campaign reported signing up 300 donors since Sunday.
"If you're going to run on a jobs platform, how do you do that when you relegate half of the working population to second-class status? Because that's what this paper he wrote reveals," said Del. Margaret G. Vanderhye (D-Fairfax).
Some Republicans said they had heard little reaction. Others said party activists were energized, convinced that McDonnell is being unfairly attacked over an old academic paper. Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax) said attendees Sunday at a Republican Women's Club rally in Fairfax said they were incensed over what they called a "hatchet job."
Bob McDonnell lying about his Voting Record? 'Fraid so...
Bob McDonnell has a truth-telling problem, need proof? Check out this ad from VaDemocrats:
Did Bob McDonnell Lie When he said he was "sort of unemployed"
Check out this story from Not Larry Sabato:
Back In Action Against McDonnell
I've decided to ramp up the negativity on Bobby McDonnell because Virginia needs to keep the streak alive and keep the Governors mansion in line. Keep it tuned hear for all things Creigh...
Continue Reading This Post...Sunday, June 28, 2009
Coup in Honduras
Army overthrows Honduras president
Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:07pm EDT
By Mica Rosenberg
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The Honduran army ousted and exiled leftist President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday in Central America's first military coup since the Cold War, triggered by his bid to make it legal to seek another term in office.
U.S. President Barack Obama and the European Union expressed deep concern after troops came for Zelaya, an ally of socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, around dawn and took him away from his residence. He was whisked away to Costa Rica.
Zelaya, who took office in 2006 and is limited by the constitution to a four-year term that ends in early 2010, had angered the army, courts and Congress by pushing for an unofficial public vote on Sunday to gauge support for his plan to hold a November referendum on allowing presidential re-election.
Speaking on Venezuelan state television, Chavez -- who has long championed the left in Latin America -- said he had put his troops on alert over the Honduran coup and would do everything necessary to abort the coup against his close ally.
He said that if the Venezuela ambassador was killed, or troops entered the Venezuela embassy, "that military junta would be entering a defacto state of war, we would have to act militarily." He said, "I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert."
Chavez, who has in the past threatened military action in the region but never followed through, said that if a new government is sworn in after the coup it would be defeated.
A military plane flew Zelaya to Costa Rica and CNN's Spanish-language channel said he had asked for asylum there.
Some 2,000 pro-government protesters, some armed with shovels and metal poles, burned tires in front of the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and two fighter jets screamed through the sky over the city.
Democracy has taken root in Central America in recent decades after years of dictatorships and war, but crime, corruption and poverty are still major problems. Zelaya said the coup smacked of an earlier era.
"If holding a poll provokes a coup, the abduction of the president and expulsion from his country, then what kind of democracy are we living in?" Zelaya said in Costa Rica.
Honduras, an impoverished coffee, textile and banana exporter with a population of 7 million, had been politically stable since the end of military rule in the early 1980s. But Zelaya has moved the country further left since taking power. His push to change the constitution drove a rift between his office and the nation's other institutions.
A former businessman who sports a cowboy hat and thick mustache, Zelaya fired military chief Gen. Romeo Vasquez last week for refusing to help him run Sunday's unofficial survey on extending the four-year term limit on Honduran presidents.
Zelaya, 56, told Venezuela-based Telesur television station that he was "kidnapped" by soldiers and called on Hondurans to peacefully resist the coup.
OBAMA CALLS FOR CALM
The EU condemned the coup and Obama called for calm.
"Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference," Obama said. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged all parties in Honduras to respect the constitution and the rule of law.
Honduras was a staunch U.S. ally in the 1980s when Washington helped Central American governments fight left-wing guerrillas.
The United States still has 600 troops stationed at Soto Cano Air Base, a Honduran military installation that is also the headquarters for a regional U.S. joint task force that conducts humanitarian, drug and disaster relief operations.
"The commanders at Soto Cano are taking appropriate force protection measures," Pentagon spokesman David Oten said.
Sunday's coup was the first successful military ouster of a president in Central America since the Cold War era.
An opposition deputy said Congress would chose Roberto Micheletti, the head of Congress, as acting president later on Sunday, and Honduras' top electoral court said a presidential election would be held as planned on November 29.
The Supreme Court, which last week came out against Zelaya and ordered him to reinstate fired military chief Vasquez, said on Sunday it had told the army to remove the president.
"It acted to defend the rule of law," the court said in a statement read on Honduran radio.
The global economic crisis has curbed growth in Honduras, which is heavily dependent on remittances from Honduran workers abroad. Recent opinion polls indicate public support for Zelaya has fallen as low as 30 percent.
Honduras is a major drug trafficking transit point.
It is also a big coffee producer but there was no immediate sign the unrest would affect production.
(Addition reporting by Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa, David Morgan and Ross Colvin in Washington, and Frank Jack Daniel in Caracas, Writing by Alistair Bell and Catherine Bremer, Editing by Frances Kerry)
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Video Footage of Mass Swat Exodus
One of the largest mass movements of people in 24 hours in modern times. Refugee crisis remains imminent.
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