Reasons to be thankful

Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham
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It’s Thanksgiving – and on this day when we are supposed to reflect on reasons that we all have to be thankful, I thought it appropriate to muse on the reasons that newsmakers in Virginia might have to be thankful this holiday season.

Ahem. Here goes.

John Casteen: $700K-plus-a-year? He almost makes as much as the basketball coach. Thankful for a gracious Board of Visitors, he is.

Larry Sabato: He’s got to be thankful for a Bush administration whose callous view of constitutional matters has given his new crusade some validity.

Tim Kaine: Mark Warner’s coattails.

Jim Webb: Mark Warner’s coattails.

Creigh Deeds: Mark Warner’s coattails.

Brian Moran: Mark Warner’s coattails.

Mark Warner: That he is able to stay in tiptop shape, what with all the guys riding his coattails.

Bill Bolling and Bob McDonnell: It’s not Christmas yet, but Kaine’s move regarding funding for abstinence-only sex ed was an early Christmas present.

Jim Gilmore: No Tom Davis – and no primary.

Chris Saxman: No Tom Davis – and no primary.

Al Groh: Twenty years of bad breaks and unlucky bounces for Virginia football get repaid in full this year. Which is a big reason that he’s 9-2, and not 4-7.

Michael Vick: Um … er … he could be thankful that he saw the movie “The Longest Yard” before he turned himself in. Hopefully he saw the Burt Reynolds classic, not the Adam Sandler bomb.