“Squirming in Virginia” written by Lee Hockstader was published in the Washington Post on Friday, Jan 28, 2005. There is really nothing new in this article other than the fact that Hockstader puts things in a rather blunt perspective.

The article makes the often heard arguments about Tim Kaine having a problem because of his beliefs against capital punishment, while Jerry Kilgore is conflicted on the tax issue, because he supported the anti-tax contingent of the Republican Party during last year’s legislative debacle, while he is now endorsing the re-election of the 19 Delegates who voted for the tax increase.

Hockstader fails to mention that Kilgore’s support against the tax increase was lukewarm and rather muted. He only found his voice after Sen. George Allen and former Gov. Doug Wilder spoke out loudly against the folly of tax increases. In that regard, Kilgore ended up alienating the anti-tax contingent of his Party—the same folks he was ostensibly supporting when he spoke out against the tax increases.

However, what’s really an eye opener is the liberal slant in Hockstader’s column. This sentence says it all: “Forced to choose sides, Kilgore went with the anti-tax true believers over the budgetary pragmatists.”

Apparently, to Mr. Hockstader the largest tax increase in the history of our state that has resulted in a $1+ billion surplus is the stuff that materialized out of “budgetary pragmatism.” In the liberal thinking tax increases are always good, no matter how unnecessary or misleading.

It is this sort of liberal bias that has made the mainstream media’s news coverage totally unreliable. As long as they continue down the same approach, they will continue becoming more and more irrelevant.