Priorities

Bob McDonnell wants to fix the economy; Creigh Deeds wants to kill future taxpayers.

Meanwhile, someone is leaking photos of Confederate flags that just ain’t so.  Jim Hoeft over at Bearing Drift joins Anita Kumar over at the Washington Post in taking Joe Abbey and Ben Tribbett to task:

No one will remember this blatant lie (the second for the Deeds campaign in as many weeks), but what they will remember is how reckless and irresponsible bloggers bring down the entire medium through their flagrant narcissism…and how desperate candidates are quick to go negative and spread falsehoods, ruining the nobility of public service.

Today’s joint failure by Tribbett and Abbey is shameful and should be condemned by all bloggers, regardless of their political stripes. And Sen. Deeds should take his campaign staff to the woodshed, in particular Joe Abbey, for his actions today too…unless, of course, he condones this sort of behavior.

One comment on the WaPo Virginia Politics blog has it best:

I believe the Democrat blogger you quoted ran Ben “Cooter” Jones unsuccessful campaign against Eric Cantor. Yes, the Cooter that drove the General Lee car with the Confederate flag on top – something he drove while campaigning. Hypocrite, but typical of the Deeds campaign.

Ouch.

So who gave Ben Tribbett the photo?  He’s not saying.  But the interesting thing is the timeline from when NLS posted the image to when Deeds campaign manager Joe Abbey shared the post on Twitter just hours afterwards.  This after Patrick Ruffini absolutely blasted the allegation 12 hours before hand.

What’s more, Democratic operatives were keen to repeat the slander, bragging about how the Confederate flag picture was going viral just moments after Ben Tribbett posted the picture.

Meanwhile, the MSM by and large has let the Deeds campaign off with a free pass, at least for the time being.  No tough questions as of yet… but is anyone really holding their breath?

This would mark the third major gaffe the Deeds campaign has committed in the past 10 days.