Republicans are blameless for what happened in Charleston

By shifting the focus to who brought the poster, the editorial, “Visit May Dispel Some Stereotypes,” continues Ogden’s efforts to absolve the Republican Party of any responsibility for what happened in the Capitol Rotunda earlier this month:

A few weeks ago, during the state Legislature’s regular annual session, West Virginia made national news because of a poster displayed in the Capitol. It was taken there by a woman with no connection to state government, nor to either the Republican or Democratic parties.

Her “no connection” is totally irrelevant. The event that featured the poster was “Republicans Take the Rotunda” and it was sponsored by the Republican Party. Someone in that party okayed the poster to be prominently on display during the Republican event and most likely, as even the Ogden political reporter noted, it was Republican Chairwoman Melody Potter. Here is Potter posing with the woman:

Update: here’s Potter posing with the woman who ran that booth. Maybe her silence isn’t that surprising pic.twitter.com/03tAsfYjdb

— Jake Zuckerman (@jake_zuckerman) March 2, 2019

Obviously, the Republican Party was responsible despite the News-Register’s denial.

The editorial leaves room for an attack (there’s always room)

This editorial is not unlike an earlier editorial which also cleared the Republican Party of responsibility. That editorial singled out Representative Omar (the object of the poster’s attack) for criticism; this one takes an undocumented shot at the Muslim group that was invited to the West Virginia’s Capitol to improve relations with Islamic-Americans: The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). (Here’s the original AP story about the invitation.) Without any evidence, the editorial connects CAIR to Hamas. I spent more than a few minutes trying to prove or disprove the assertion, but my search could only yield page after page of the usual rightwing attacks: Breitbart, National Review, Michele Malkin et al who all make the connection. I could not draw a conclusion because absent from those pages are sources from the mainstream media. Note - the original AP story makes no reference to Hamas in describing CAIR.

Like the previous editorials on this subject, it’s not about stereotypes or discrimination – it’s about absolving the Republican Party of blame and in the process, taking some of their own shots at Muslim-Americans.