Republicans playing shell game on Justin Fairfax

Virginia Republicans are playing some ugly politics right now with Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax.

The side that decried the Brett Kavanaugh hearings just four months ago now suddenly wants you to forget what it had to say discrediting Christine Blasey Ford.

Because.

See, Fairfax is a Democrat, that’s why.

Now, Blasey Ford, she was part of a liberal conspiracy.

Making it all up, out of the thin air.

But the two women accusing Fairfax, they’re legit.

Let me make clear here: I have no reason to think that they’re not legit.

The similarities in their stories, and between their stories and the story of Blasey Ford in the Kavanaugh case, are telling.

A fair hearing in all three would seem to be more than enough to disqualify the accused in each case from service in public office.

And I’d say the same with regard to our current president, who is now facing another allegation of sexual misconduct, this one from the 2016 campaign.

The latest allegation brings the number of public allegations of sexual misconduct against the president to 22.

Republicans conveniently ignore those, while making hay with the likes of Fairfax, showing their hand.

It’s not about actually standing on the right side of history.

If it was, there’d be a different conservative jurist on the Supreme Court, and Donald Trump, as ex-president, would be playing golf at Mar-a-Lago slightly more often.

What Virginia Republicans are doing is pretense.

Looking for something, anything to stop the advance of Democrats, who even after an awful month politically are odds-on favorites to take control of the General Assembly in the November elections.

The call for hearings into the allegations against Fairfax are an effort at a power grab.

The aim is obvious: to diminish enthusiasm among female voters for Democratic candidates, to hit at the gender gap that benefits Democrats.

There’s a not-at-all-subtle racial component at play here as well.

Power elites in Virginia have used the specter of black men as rapists as a political sledgehammer dating back to colonial days.

They’re not going to like seeing somebody point that out, which, fine.

There’s a way for them to get me to stand down on that point: call for bipartisan action on Fairfax, Kavanaugh, Trump and any others on either side of the aisle facing a credible accusation of sexual misconduct.

Anything short of that is political fluff to otherwise be ignored.

Column by Chris Graham