After news broke that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook page featured a photograph of a man in blackface and another in KKK garb, the national media was unusually tough on the elected Democrat. Friday’s coverage featured repeated calls for the rookie state executive to resign, and after an unusual press conference Saturday in which Northam attempted to walk back an earlier admission of appearing in the photograph, the media quickly declared the spectacle “made things worse.”
But then things started to shift.
Reporters and media contributors — primarily on MSNBC — are now starting to argue that this scandals speaks poorly not of Northam and the Democratic Party, but of Republicans.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur said Monday that the scandal actually speaks well of Democrats and badly of Republicans.
“The Democratic Party is trying to be pretty clear on this, it seems,” she said. “You can’t do this in the Democratic Party. The Republican Party maybe you can, but the Democratic Party you can’t.”
Tur then followed up with an even more fulsome defense of Democrats:
“Race was a factor in this race for governor, Doug [Thornell]. Corey Stewart was accused of not being racially sensitive. The Republican Party has been accused to not be racially sensitive, to put it in delicate terms. What’s going on with Steve King in Iowa is one example of that. The President himself has been accused of being a racist multiple times. Given that, there are some folks out there who say, ‘Listen, why should a Democrat who seemed to have led a decent life since then and has represented the state and won the majority of black voters, why should he pay the price for wrongdoings on the other side?’ That’s an argument that is out there.”
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Tur’s MSNBC colleague, Karine Jean-Pierre, likewise turned the scandal around on Republicans. Since they haven’t demanded Trump’s removal from office, she said, they have “no moral ground” to attack Northam.
“I have to say this, Chris, about the Republican Party: There’s no moral ground,” she said. “Yes, now, they’re speaking out against Steve King, but they haven’t asked for King to resign. Many of the Republicans speaking out about Ralph Northam, they supported Cory Stewart, they’ve supported Ed Gillespie. So, I think that you know, there — there is — it’s not — it’s not the same; it is really different.”
She continued: “We have Donald Trump, you know, who has shown, like you mentioned, Chris, with Charlottesville and other policies, there is — there are — that he has really bigoted and racist ways. And he is still there. Why — why have we — why have Republicans in Congress not have stepped up and really made him accountable for the things he’s done and the things he said? So, it’s not the same thing. I think you have leaders in the Democratic that’s going to be in the Democratic primary and who are in already in the Democratic primary for this presidential election who have been really clear about Ralph Northam and denounced him. And I think that’s the difference. They’ve said he should resign.”
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On “Morning Joe,” regular guest Tom Nichols, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, said “it’s insulting” Republicans are attacking Northam for appearing in a racist photograph.
“Everybody’s got a right to express an opinion, not everybody has a right to be taken seriously,” Nichols said. “You know, the thing that really was striking about Republicans on the Northam thing is that they were issuing these kinds of statements as though nothing had ever happened up until yesterday. As though somehow we’re all like the guy in that movie who can’t form new memories, that every time we go to sleep we wake up and we start all over again as if nothing had ever happened. It’s insulting. I mean, it goes beyond hypocrisy. It’s insulting.”
He went on: “For Republicans in the past two years to put up with the things they’ve put up with and then try to pivot at the last minute and have this newfound racial sensitivity was really appalling. I mean, it’s just appalling.”
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MSNBC’s Howard Dean likewise argued the scandal is actually bad for Republicans, not Democrats. Appearing on CNN, Dean was asked by CNN’s media reporter Brian Stelter if Republicans are guilty of a “double standard” for going after Northam. Dean said they are, and that Republicans “have no morals at all.”
“Sure there is [a double standard], on the Republicans,” Dean said. “You know, they have no morals at all. I mean, Republicans are happy to ask Ralph Northam to resign. They have a much worse guy heading their party. It’s ridiculous. This is not — this is very similar to the Kavanaugh appointment, who got appointed with nothing but Republican votes. They don’t care about this kind of stuff because their base doesn’t care about this kind of stuff.”
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