A local news article on former Waynesboro vice mayor Jim Wood is a pathetic effort to whitewash Wood’s “Pete Buttplug” slur of former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Wood’s now-shuttered MAGA podcast, as the writer whips up a rumor making the rounds nowhere that Wood is considering a run down the road for governor.
“It was never an attack on his sexuality,” Wood was allowed to say in the article, from News Virginian staff writer Bob Stuart, who gives Wood space to dismiss the slur as being about Buttigieg “dragging his feet” after a train derailment in Ohio in 2023.
“I regret that, making fun of the man’s last name,” said Wood, who was apparently not asked about a previous self-generated controversy, in which Wood dismissed the 2022 hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a “domestic incident” on another of his MAGA podcasts, and made the claim that the attacker, David DePape, now serving a life sentence, was a “friend of Paul Pelosi and a male prostitute.”
ICYMI
- Waynesboro Republicans cast doubt, then joke about attack on Pelosi
- Jim Wood: The MAGA guy who thinks it’s funny to hit Democrats with a hammer
- Waynesboro’s vice mayor joked about the Pelosi hammer attack: How funny is it now?
“Both in their skivvies, and both had a hammer. Nothing to see here. Huh? How about that? Yeah, yeah, funny how that works,” Wood said.
The attack left Paul Pelosi with a broken skull; Wood treated the attack as fodder for sick jokes.
“The best dad joke I’ve heard in a while has been floating around today, said right before that incident, you know, Nancy Pelosi, she texted Paul to say, I hope you’re not drinking and driving. And the reply was, No, I’m just staying at home getting hammered,” Wood said to his podcast audience.
It would seem that there’s a pattern here – “Pete Buttplug” is not an accident; “Paul Pelosi and a male prostitute,” “staying at home getting hammered,” also seems pretty intentional.
But anyway, now Wood, who is apparently not going to mount a campaign for re-election to Waynesboro City Council – which would be a good idea on his part; he won his in 2022 by a miniscule 17-vote margin, and is certain to get a comeuppance in 2026 if he were to mount a second run – is considering a campaign for governor, and he seems to think that it’s important to his political rehabilitation that he come across as embracing the candidacy of John Reid, the MAGA talk-show host running for lieutenant governor.
ICYMI
Reid is also openly gay, and he made an awkward campaign stop in Waynesboro last month, and was photographed sitting uncomfortably next to Wood, oblivious, we’re now being told, to the fact that the guy sitting next to him is a raging homophobe.
Stuart reported that Reid “was unaware of Wood’s previous remark regarding Buttigieg” – Stuart himself appears to be unaware of the field day that Wood had with the Paul Pelosi story, that, or just unwilling to acknowledge that one.
The next line in Stuart’s story was a quote from Reid:
“I’m a pretty forgiving guy. It doesn’t do me any good as a groundbreaking candidate to hold a grudge,” Reid said.
He’s right on that – he shouldn’t hold a grudge against Wood, who doubles as the chair of the Waynesboro Republican Committee, because Reid needs all the help he can get.
A Christopher Newport University poll released last week has Reid trailing the Democratic nominee, Ghazala Hashmi, by 11 points, as the MAGA statewide ticket is struggling against the headwind of Donald Trump’s dramatic unpopularity – the CNU poll had Trump getting positive job approval from just 39 percent of voters in Virginia, with 58 percent saying they don’t approve of his job performance in Year 1 of his second four-year term.
ICYMI
Reid had to fight an intense intraparty battle just to remain on the 2025 ticket. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, an on-again, off-again MAGA, led a putsch against Reid, using dirty tricks inspired by Nixon’s daffy plumbers, in the form of a social-media account set up under a username associated with Reid to post gay porn, as a way of trying to embarrass Reid off the ballot.
Reid fought back against that amateurish attack from inside the Republican house by railing against the “Richmond swamp” and the “corrupt political machine” – he was railing there against fellow MAGA Republicans, mind you.
I feel for Reid here – well, almost; as he’s allowing himself to be persecuted for who he is as a gay man, he has used his microphone to parrot MAGA talking points on reproductive freedoms, DEI, “the radical trans movement.”
No sh*t, the campaign website of an openly LGBTQ+ candidate uses those exact words.
That’s the otherwise out and proud gay man bowing to political pressure, and explains why John Reid would be willing to pretend for a news reporter that he forgives a foul-mouthed homophobe, thinking it might win him a few votes.
As for Jim Wood, this story is a clear effort to set him for “higher office, specifically governor,” according to Stuart’s reporting.
In the here and now, the piece is also free advertising for a gun store that Wood is working to open in Waynesboro this fall, which we’re told may be the reason why Wood decides against running for a second term on the City Council, given that the new business would represent “a significant financial and time-consuming undertaking.”
We all know the truth as to why Jim Wood isn’t going to run for re-election: because he knows his win in 2022 was a fluke, and that he would lose in 2026 in a landslide, which, in turn, would make a run for whatever higher office would be his next grift more laughable than it would already be.
That’s a line in the sand that I’m drawing there.
I’m personally guaranteeing that Jim Wood loses in a landslide in 2026 if he runs again.
To borrow from one of his podcasts:
“Best dad joke I’ve heard in a while was floating around today, right after the polls closed on Election Night, Jim Wood’s wife, she texted him to say, Jim, I think we’re going to win. And the reply was, No, I’m heading home. We’re getting taken to the Wood-shed.”
Dad jokes are supposed to be dumb, remember.
The gauntlet is thrown down; time to put up, or shut up.
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Chris Graham
