One of the political phenomena I enjoy the most is when Virginia Republicans from the evangelical wing try to repackage themselves for higher office. Robert McDonnell, candidate for governor, was doing a passable job until this week, when his 1989 master’s thesis was discovered. The paper is a classic of earnest Christian right activism of the late '80s. It’s too bad this PDF is not searchable, or one could have great fun: Find “fornicator,” “feminist,” homosexual,” “abortion,” “prayer in schools,” “working women.” Pick any culture war issue and young McDonnell has, in this paper, taken the most extreme side of it.

In the summation of the Washington Post, which broke the story, he described “working women and feminists as 'detrimental' to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over 'cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.' He described as 'illogical' a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.”

McDonnell’s response was that he should be judged by his 14 years in the General Assembly, not some paper he wrote as a kid. But, of course, as a legislator he has acted pretty much in keeping with what the blogosphere has taken to calling “Bob’s Manifesto,” calling for abortion restrictions, tax policies to favor the traditional family, opposing ending wage discrimination, and supporting the arcane notion of covenant marriage. It’s just that young Bob grew up, so he stopped talking like that.

You have to feel sorry for poor Bob. He didn’t write anything different than you could have read in 100 books—and no doubt college theses—during what was the birth of the Christian pro-family movement. It "was simply an academic exercise and clearly does not reflect my views," he told the Post.

Tell that to Sotomayor.

Photograph of Robert McDonnell by Waldo Jaquith.

Tags: Robert McDonnell

Hanna, I too have been fascinated by the dustup over recent news reports of Virginia’s gubernatorial hopeful, Bob McDonnell, and his 20-year-old graduate thesis from Regent University. Here’s the thesis. Like you, I agree that it’s hard to think of the document as some sort of abstract political thought experiment, when it’s so obviously a blueprint for what became much of his subsequent political career (including opposition to working women, abortion, homosexuals, and legalized contraception for unmarried couples, and support for spanking, religious education in public schools, and covenant marriages). This also goes back to a longstanding question I have had about Regent University and other religious law schools that explicitly seek to use the legal system to promote their own values: They are nothing if not honest that this is the goal. So why are we ineviatably astonished by it?

Don’t forget that the uber-loyal Bushie, Monica Goodling, also graduated from Regent law school, and then used her position in the Bush Administration to develop “a very positive reputation for people coming from Christian schools into Washington looking for employment in government." At the height of Goodling’s reign, Regent estimated that "approximately one out of every six Regent alumni is employed in some form of government work." The school's motto is "Christian Leadership To Change the World." Seen in that light not one little bit of McDonnell’s thesis is surprising. The surprise is that we are all so surprised by it.

Photograph by Getty Images.

Tags: Regent law school

My first thought upon hearing about Robert McDonnell’s moronic 1989 thesis was that it ought to be ignored. We all go through regrettably earnest periods in our teens and twenties; it’s unkind to judge other people by the feeble intellectual output of their past selves. And McDonnell says he ought to be judged by his legislative record, which also appears to be crazy, so nothing much changes if we grant him this.

But then I checked Wikipedia and realized that McDonnell was older than your average master’s student; according to Wikipedia, he was 35, an age at which a little more perspective might be expected. At any rate, before he even starts warming up for what he now calls an "academic exercise," before the fetishization of corporal punishment and no-fault divorce and condom-free marital relations, he chooses to thank his wife this way:

I am deeply grateful to my wife Maureen, whose encouragement and expert clerical support helped turn marginally-legible scratch, into these finished pages, [sic] and whose steadfastness and love for our children provided me with the time to devote to this project.

What a perfect summation of the model wife in this worldview: A steadfast, expert provider of clerical support! Now there's a vision to strive for. Put this man in office!

Photograph by Getty Images.

Tags: Robert McDonnell's master's thesis; Regent law school

I'd like to believe that the recent uncovering of Bob McDonnell's graduate thesis was a smart act of investigative sleuthing, if only because watching people shoot themselves in the foot this badly makes me squirm. But it wasn't. How did the Washington Post get their hands on the thesis that has likely ruined McDonnell's political career in one day? He simply told them about it. OOPS.

In an online forum earlier this afternoon, WaPo reporter Anita Kumar had this to say when asked how the paper found out about McDonnell's decades old thesis:

We recently obtained the thesis. Bob McDonnell mentioned the thesis a couple weeks ago when we were interviewing him for another story. We then went to find it. As we indicated in the story, it is available at the Regent library and has likely been there for 20 years. We did not wait to publish the story until Labor Day. We published the story after we finished our reporting, which included receiving comments from his campaign.

In my mind, this reveal negates his "It was 20 years ago" excuse. Why openly bring up something you think is dated and inaccurately reflects your current political views with members of the press? It's like exposing yourself to a cop, and then acting shocked when your picture ends up in the paper.

Photograph of Bob McDonnell's signature on his master's thesis is a screenshot.

Tags: McDonnell, thesis, washington post