Conservative columnist Michael Barone attacks the Washington Post for its coverage of Virginia political campaigns with a string of paper-thin complaints.

Barone starts off:

In the 2006 campaign season the Washington Post ran more than a dozen front-page stories on Senator George Allen's reference, at an August 11 campaign stop almost 400 miles from Washington, to an opposition campaign staffer as “Macaca.”

What does the fact that the campaign event took place “almost 400 miles from Washington” have to do with anything? It's obviously an attempt to suggest the Post shouldn't have paid attention to something that happened so far from its base of operations. But that ... Well, it just doesn't make any sense.

George Allen was running for the United States Senate. The way the US Senate works is that each Senator represents an entire state. Are the Washington Post's many readers in Northern Virginia supposed to disregard comments a Virginia Senate candidate makes in another part of the state? That may well be the dumbest thing I've ever seen a purported political “expert” write.

Actually, it's probably dishonest rather than stupid: Barone must know the distance of the campaign stop from Washington just doesn't matter, as he doesn't even attempt to explain why it should. Instead, he seems to just hope the insinuation undermines the Post before anyone notices its fundamental irrationality.

Next, Barone threatens to make this kind of inanity an ongoing feature:

To provide a fair perspective, we'll start a Macaca watch, to list stories which make the front page of the Post not on the basis of news value but solely and obviously to defeat the Republican candidate.

Barone's first example of the Post putting a story on the front page “solely and obviously to defeat” a Republican?

Item number one on the Macaca Watch is the Sunday front page story on the thesis Bob McDonnell wrote in 1989 at Regent University where he obtained a masters degree in public policy and a law degree.

Really? The fact that a major-party gubernatorial candidate wrote a thesis arguing that working women and feminists are “detrimental” to the family is not legitimate front-page news? Does anybody really believe that?

Barone explains, continuing directly:

This is, as the story acknowledged, a publicly available document and its contents would certainly be a legitimate part of an article on McDonnell's background and the evolution of his political views.

Well, nice of Barone to acknowledge that such a thesis could be mentioned as part of a larger article. But what does the fact that the Post “acknowledged” the thesis is “publicly available document” have to do with anything? Like the “400 miles” business: nothing. Barone is again trying to undermine the article by describing utterly innocuous facts with loaded language.

Barone, continuing directly:

But the first paragraph of the story, prominently on the front page, sends the culturally liberal voters of Northern Virginia in the Post's local circulation area a pretty clear message: you better not vote for this guy. He went to an “evangelical” school (Regent University Law School), described feminists as “detrimental” and “said government policy should favor married couples over 'cohabitors, homosexuals or fornicators.'”

Oh, I get it: the Post shouldn't have mentioned the stuff about feminists, gays, and fornicators in the first paragraph. I guess it should have been a subordinate clause in paragraph 37.

Next, Barone discusses another Post article about McDonnell's thesis:

Those are pretty fair-minded descriptions of the arguments the two sides are marking. One wonders how they got in here: did a fair-minded editor insist on including that second paragraph over the objections of a partisan reporter, or vice versa?

Well, that's a nifty trick, using “fair minded descriptions of the arguments the two sides are making” as evidence of the Post's partisanship. We're through the looking glass, people.

Barone, continuing directly:

But of course they're not as prominent in the story as the lead paragraph's reference to “what he [McDonnell] wrote about working women, homosexuals and 'fornicators.'”

Is Barone kidding? That paragraph doesn't mention or even characterize what McDonnell wrote; it merely indicates the topic. It contains not even a hint as to why the writings were controversial. McDonnell couldn't have asked for a better lead paragraph in an article about the thesis. It isn't until the sixth paragraph that Post readers are told what McDonnell wrote -- after McDonnell is quoted attacking his opponent, and after McDonnell is paraphrased asserting that his views have changed. And after the Post makes the McDonnell-friendly assertion in it's headlines that McDonnell no longer holds the views he expressed in the thesis.

Yet Michael Barone wants you to think the Post unfairly led with a loaded description of McDonnell's comments. That's why he doesn't actually quote the Post article in any detail; doing so would show how dishonest he's being. The truth is that before the Post article ever gave any indication of why McDonnell's comments were controversial, it:

1. Asserted that McDonnell no longer holds the views in question
2. Twice -- including in the opening sentence -- mentions that the thesis is 20 years old
3. Paraphrased McDonnell's assertion that he no longer holds the views in question
4. Quoted McDonnell attacking his opponent and accusing him of lying

If this is the best Barone can do, he should retire his “Macaca Watch” before he makes a complete fool of himself.