The Free Lance-Black Hole strikes again!

In a personal editorial that contains enough changes of direction to give a reader whiplash, Paul Akers, opinion editor of the Free Lance-Star (or, as I prefer to call it, the far more appropriate Free Lance-Black Hole) embarrasses himself and his newspaper.

He starts well, with a fairly decent critique of the domestic policy of President Bush . . .

. . . whose fealty to megabusiness is creating before our unbelieving eyes what FDR never dared: the rapid socialization of U.S. finance and industry . . .

It doesn’t take long for Akers to start losing the script.  Things get really bad when he switches to state government:

The last notable achievement of the GOP-run House of Delegates occurred in 2004 when 17 Republicans broke ranks to support a tax increase to boost education, health, and other neglected state obligations.

“Neglected state obligations”?  If Akers had actually taken the time to look at the numbers before deciding the big-government nonsense he hated in Washington was just peachy for Richmond, he might have noted that health-care spending shot through the roof in the Warner-Kaine era, enough to be more than three times the tax hike.  The only area “neglected” was transportation, but that was a deliberate action by Mark Warner in an attempt to force Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to raise their own taxes.

Things really get bad when Akers looks to next year:

When the General Assembly convenes in January, I expect no significant departure among House R’s from No New Taxes doctrine, whatever the public need.

Perhaps Akers wasn’t paying attention, but the Republican Party of Virginia is already on record as havng supported or acquiesced in four tax increase proposals in six years: the tax-hike “referendum” of 2002 (inflicted on voters by a Republican General Assembly), the tax-hike of 2004, a near-miss gas-tax hike in 2006 (rejected only by House Republicans), and the now-infamous HB3202 (which even Akers had to admit was a “Rube Goldberg funding mechanism”).  Has it even occurred to him that the GOP’s problems in Virginia have at least something to do with that recent history?

But this is Akers’ ridiculous coup de grace:

Whether the House GOP’s–warning: abrupt metaphor switch–parachute never opens (2009) or whether House R’s plummet a bit more slowly under a “Mae West” canopy (2011), the impact will be equally fatal. I say vote Democratic and get it over with, the better to hasten GOP reconstruction. I am quite fond of Howell and Mark Cole, may princes spring from their loins, but sometimes, to modify a bogus quote from the Vietnam War, you have to destroy the hamlet to save the village.

When total debacle shocks Republicans into intellectual reformation, I offer for party adoption a simple motto: Be competent.

How raising taxes in this economy would be even remotely ”competent” was left unexplained – and for good reason.

Also left out of the column was the fact that the House Republicans actually came up with a plan that tied road funding to economic activity, something no Democrat was willing to do.  Moreover, the House Republicans’ plan actually meant more money for NoVa and Hampton Roads transportation than the Dems’ tax-hike.

Sadly, Akers’ column merely reveals that the madness and ignorance that seized the FLBH during last summer’s special session went deep into the editorial leadership, and afflicts it to this day.

Cross-posted to Rappahannock Red