We all know by now that Bob McDonnell is trying as hard as he can to never answer any questions about his theocratic, dominionist CBN/Regent thesis. That's bad enough. But now, as evidenced by his comments on the Mark Plotkin show this morning, McDonnell's just blatantly making things up, aka "lying."First, McDonnell says that his words about how "working women and feminists" are "detrimental to the family" have been taken out of context, that they were "descriptive." Huh? According to Merriam-Webster, "descriptive" means "factually grounded or informative rather than normative, prescriptive, or emotive." For instance, providing empirical data/statistics about divorce and child care would be "descriptive." Saying that something is "ultimately detrimental to the family" and advocating against it is almost purely "normative, prescriptive, or emotive." The latter constitutes opinion, in other words - and crazy, uninformed opinion at that.
Look, it’s one thing if McDonnell wants to claim that he has changed his views and that he now supports working women (although it would be great if he could flesh out his thought process for us so we could understand the evolution, how he got from there to here). However, what Bob McDonnell cannot get away with is to flatly deny that he opposed women in the workplace in that thesis. That's just blatantly false, aka "a lie."
Second, McDonnell claims that resolutions are symbolic and don't really matter. That's why, supposedly, he voted against a resolution in favor of giving women equal pay for equal work in 2001 - because it didn't matter. The problem with this line of "reasoning" (using the term VERY loosely) is that McDonnell has not only VOTED for resolutions such as these, he actually has sponsored many of them, including two in the days immediately following his vote against equal pay. In other words, Bob McDonnell was a leader on this issue, pushing hard to deny women equal pay, to make it as hard as possible for them to flourish in the workforce, and ultimately to pressure them back into the home the way it was in "Father Knows Best" or something.
Beyond that, the argument that resolutions are merely symbolic is absurd on its face. I mean, imagine if the U.S. Congress passed a resolution saying that a certain class of citizens were evil degenerates. Would that not matter? Do words not matter at all? If so, why the heck did Bob McDonnell write so many of them for Pat Robertson's law school? Also, why was one of the very first resolutions that Bob McDonnell sponsored as a new delegate a Bob Marshall resolution “concerning future abortion legislation” in Virginia (HJR225, January 21, 1992)? FYI, that resolution stated that "the United States Supreme Court case that ruled statutes prohibiting abortion unconstitutional, is likely soon to be overturned," and that "the General Assembly will be called upon to again enact legislation proscribing or limiting abortions after Roe v. Wade is overturned." But don't worry, that was merely symbolic according to Bob McDonnell. Maybe even "descriptive." Or something. Ha.
More important than the specifics of these cases - not to mention his claim that he hadn't thought about his thesis in 20 years, or that he really didn't ever say that homosexuality raised questions about someone's qualifications to be a judge, etc., etc. - is the general concept that Virginians simply cannot trust Bob McDonnell. On issue after issue, McDonnell has stated extreme views over the years (and tried to enact them into law), but now - in the midst of a gubernatorial campaign, in which he has every motive in the world to appear "moderate" - he's trying to claim that he never really meant any of it. "Just kidding," McDonnell is essentially saying, "you guys didn't actually think I was serious did you?!?" "Suckers!"
