Posted 11:12 AM by steve

The Washington Post has an article today on the former mayor of a Virginia town being indicted on charges of election fraud. Given that this town, Gate City has all of 2,100 residents and is on the North Carolina border, 412 miles away from Washington DC, and whose claim to fame is that the movie The River was filmedthere, one might wonder why the Washington Post chose to run this story at all, let alone put the article on the front page of its Metro section...

Well, as it turns out, once upon a time, Jerry Kilgore lived there. For those who don't know, Jerry Kilgore is the Republican candidate for Virginia Governor. And, as we all know, the Washington Post doesn't like Republicans. Combine this with The Post's fawning over the current Virginia Governor, Democrat Mark Warner, whose White House bid won't be looking too good were Virginia voters to pick a GOP replacement this fall, and we can all rest assured the Post won't miss an opportunity to smear Kilgore.

Now, did Kilgore have anything to do with the mayor being indicted? Either Jerry Kilgore or his mother, Willie Mae Kilgore, who happens to be the voter registrar for Gate City, and is prominently mentioned in the 3rd paragraph of the Post story?

The answer is NO. Neither of them has been charged with anything, neither of them had anything to do with the antics of the former mayor.

Of course, Tim Kaine, the Democratic candidate didn't have anything to do with the election fraud in Gate City. But I didn't see the Post dragging him into this issue. Nor have I seen the Post include Kaine's name in any of the stories they've run about Richmond, where Kaine hails from... and which has a whole lot more crime than does Gate City, a whole lot more people than does Gate City, and is but 106 miles from Washington.

I guess Patterico is on to something... the Post doesn't seem to be consistent about when they think facts are worth mentioning in an article and when they don't. In Patterico's example, the Post leaves out information that is relevant... and in my example, they include material that is truly irrelevant.

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