Recently, a formerly popular blog with a moderate, center-right “bearing” decided to start trumpeting an ill-conceived, inflammatory posting by Fredy Burgos, a member of State Central Committee from the 11th Congressional District. In the post Mr. Burgos declares that Christians have both a right, and a duty, to vote for Christian candidates over non-Christian candidates in elections. The context for this comment came in relation to the upcoming contest for Fairfax County Republican Chairman between Tim Hannigan, who is Christian, and Mike Ginsberg, who is Jewish. This launched the ever predictable circular firing squad that is well known and all-too common in the Republican party these days.
The first step in this process was for this aging blog to take the comment out of context and claim it was anti-semitic. Instead of Mr. Burgos discussing an uninformed and incorrect idea about a Christian’s duty in the electoral process, the comment was morphed into a claim that Jews should not run for office. This distortion was made easier by the fact that Mr. Burgos is well known for making derogatory comments in the past about Muslims, Catholics, and Methodists, to name a few.
If the outrage over this comment were genuine that would be one thing, but it’s not. It is carefully crafted and purposefully timed outrage designed to affect the outcome of the Hannigan/Ginsberg race. Mr. Burgos supports Tim Hannigan and has been an eager and outspoken campaign volunteer for him, while this other blog supports Mr. Ginsberg for the position. Because of this Mr. Burgos must be destroyed, and anyone who knows him must be made to publicly disavow any and all knowledge of him. In old Soviet Union terms, Mr. Burgos must be erased from history.
Cue the pitchforks from the digital mob.
The calls of condemnation come from all sides, with all the usual suspects saying all the right things in the familiar kabuki dance of contrition Republicans go through any time anyone remotely associated with the Republican Party says or does something stupid. The statements are not wrong in their sentiment, but we have been so conditioned to automatically apologize for everything someone else does or says, they feel like a form letter with only the name of the offender changing, and they seem to have lost any true meaning.
More importantly these cut-and-paste condemnations attempt to absolve others of the fact that somebody should have dealt with Mr. Burgos and his penchant for making stupid comments on the internet long ago. I have told my oldest son repeatedly to be extremely careful what he posts on social media because when it is on the internet it lives forever and can come back to haunt you. You would think after the third or fourth time Mr. Burgos made one of his inflammatory statements, SOMEBODY would have pulled him aside and “explained” to him that, as a member of RPV’s State Central Committee, he is under a microscope and should probably follow the advice of staying silent and being thought a fool, instead of opening his mouth and removing all doubt.
This leads to Mr. Hanigan issuing a statement publicly denouncing Mr. Burgos and declaring he no longer has any role in the campaign. The statement should have ended right there. Mr. Hanigan, however, not wanting to completely cut off someone who has been a loyal supporter, instead calls for an “investigation” into the issue. Who is supposed to run this investigation, what it is supposed to investigate, or who it will report to are complete mysteries. The only thing not in question is that his statement gives his opponents all the ammunition they need to continue to make Mr. Burgos and his comments the central issue in the Fairfax Chairman’s race (which was their goal all along). The race will now boil down to ridiculous claims about how a vote for Hannigan is a vote for racism and anti-semitism.
This moderate blog, not content to stir the pot in just one race, decides this is the moment to settle other scores. They begin to attack RPV Chairman, John Whitbeck, for not immediately removing Mr. Burgos from State Central Committee. The fact that Mr. Whitbeck does not have this power is irrelevant. They are not content to allow the rules to be properly followed. Their virtue-signalling, worthy of any Black Lives Matter rally, demands immediate action, no matter what that action might be.
To make matters even worse this blog is writing all of these postings anonymously so nobody can be personally blamed if their attacks should somehow backfire. You would think that bloggers who are so full of righteous indignation, and have displayed a pattern in the past of “outing” anonymous bloggers they don’t like, would have the courage to sign their names to their calls for politically motivated social justice.
What all of this leads to is a black eye for the Republican Party, and a celebration among Democrats and the liberal media for gift-wrapping them another issue to use to beat up Northern Virginia Republicans at a time when we are in danger of losing the U.S. House and Senate. This situation should never have happened, and shows how all sides of an issue can be wrong.
The blog that started this, which seems to have no problem calling others racist when it comes to the issue of immigration, was wrong to take Mr. Burgos’ comment out of context and use it in a politically motivated way to score points and help their preferred candidate win. They and their allies have been grandstanding off of one man’s comments for months now to the detriment of the Republican Party.
Mr. Hannigan was wrong to qualify his condemnation of Mr. Burgos’ comments with a need to investigate things. There is no need to investigate the situation. His supporter made a stupid comment, and was roundly, and rightly criticized for it. Cut the cord and move on.
Finally, Mr. Burgos was wrong for writing what he did. He would not be the first person in the world to claim a higher than average understanding of Christianity while completely failing to live the kind of life Christ asks of us. Furthermore, when someone has a history of writing comments that are derogatory of others, at a certain point you move past the, “I just wrote something stupid,” excuse. Once is a mistake. Twice is a pattern. More than that and it is an indicator of their personal character.
Mr. Burgos should not wait to be removed from State Central Committee. He should take personal responsibility for his own mistakes and resign, and then take some time to read the Gospels and the letters of Paul, and learn about the real duties of a Christian.
The attempts to smear other Republicans with the “guilt by association” paint brush needs to end. No one is responsible for Mr. Burgos’ comments except Mr. Burgos himself. Nobody forced him to say it. Certainly nobody asked him to say it. To use these comments in a politically motivated attempt to settle scores or win an intra-party contest says more about the character of those launching the attack than it does of those they are trying to smear.
As for the other blog, I remember another Northern Virginia blog that made an enormously overblown issue about a Halloween graphic used by the Loudoun County Republican Committee in 2011. In an attempt to regain their lost relevance, this blog elevated a cartoonish image into a national emergency when we were trying to win back control of the VA Senate, prompting calls for condemnation and demands for resignations, and nearly cost us Senate seats in Northern Virginia. That controversy turned out to be the last gasp of the blog formerly known as “Too Conservative.”
One wonders if the same fate is in store for this other blog fomenting new outrages.
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[…] Some of you may remember back in February a little controversy about comments made by Fredy Burgos on Facebook about Christians having a duty to vote for other Christians. That wrong-headed comment sparked a furious uproar across Virginia, leading to near universal condemnation, as well as Mr. Burgos’ removal from RPV State Central Committee. I myself wrote about the incident where I called upon Mr. Burgos to take responsibility and resign his position. […]
Sitting the local Fairfax County Republican Chairman race aside for one moment and looking forward to the major midterm show upcoming, where sitting Democrat Sen. Warner is displaying several cracks in his generally teflon coated political armour, given the Democratic parties’ ill conceived short term government shut down over the issue of illegal immigration (not a highly rated voter polling issue) and his personal issues as chief protagonist and top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has been leading a congressional investigation into President Trump’s alleged (we know know nonexistence) ties to Russia, while Warner himself maintained extensive contact last year with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch who was meanwhile offering Warner access to former British spy and Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, according to text messages recently uncovered. A glaring conflict of interest by the way he adroitly failed to ever mention publically at any point during the congressional investigation.
To any focused Republican operative one would believe the smell of vulnerability and ripe campaign issues might be in the air. But what do the various factions of the state party decide is the primal focal point of their attentions and interest in the lead up to this critical race? Why Fredy Burgos (?) of course, one of 56 or so serving non executive committee members of the State Central Committee and whether his decorum or lack thereof should cause him to be removed from the party apparatus which has become in many’s viewpoint frankly little more than an organized function to facilitate state political faction backbiting anyway. Do the voters care – NO. Will his presence or lack thereof create an insurmountable void in any Republican strategy to retake a state Senate seat – NO. Will the Republican voters of Fairfax County rightfully choose who they wish to serve as their new district chairperson – YES.
So one might actually ask looking in from the outside what is the point here? Does this ongoing we said, they said actually contribute to anything of any consequence in the presumably end goal of winning an election, anymore than does the heartfelt pleas we all need to get along or agree? What does any of this actually accomplish and contribute when you reduce it down to the fundamental nuts and bolts of winning elected state offices? Do I know state political organizations inside/out, no I don’t and I will be the first to admit that fact. But I have run much larger organizations than what is under consideration here and equally focused on specific goals and measurements and I see nothing in this cycle of vitriol on side issues that remotely looks like future success. If you can’t break the cycle of chasing irrelevancies how do you ever expect to win the prize in the main event? The answer is stark – you never will.
To vote just because one Candidate claims to be a Christian, so the other Is not?
Not as much Christian?
Doesn’t have Christian values?
Now replace the word Christian with Republican or Conservative?
Some of the best self-proclaimed Christians that have represented in my area have had poor job performance.
I wonder how many wicked people hind behind the cloak of Christianity are elected to office become self-serving?
What was the call number of the campaign spending bill that was just recently shot down in our
General A$$ embly that allows Representatives to spend donated campaign money for personal use?
What was the bills number?
Who voted it down?
Were they Christian?
Job performance? Swamp?
Thanks for the post Mr. Staton.
I offer a bit different view.
Think it’s not about BD or Mr.Burgos.
Think there is some cultural watershed that’s
Been reached about what is permissible to comment on.
Very much in the same way the NYT stops its hire of tech
Writer Quinn Norton seven hours after she began, for tweets.
All this as your post was going on line.
Some tsunami has upended and turned social conventions
Inside out and upside down, and should be a concern to all.
Umm, 2 things: have we gone to guilty until proven innocent and do we have free speech or not? I simply don’t understand your willingness to accept accusation and mischaracterizations on the basis of an anonymous, cowardly rant.
This is politics, bud, not a courtroom. And it’s not about free speech. No one is stopping him from speaking. They’re only stopping him from speaking for them, as an elected leader of the party.
Why isn’t anyone calling Bearing Drifts anonymous cape crusader out by their name, Lynn Mitchell?
IP timestamps are a motherfucker.
Lynn wrote that? Are you sure?
Excellent article, agree with most of the points. Mr. Burgos’s comments were pro-Christian, not anti-Semitic. Basically points out a truth that folks tend to vote for people like themselves, i.e., Christians may favor a Christian candidate or Jews may favor a Jewish candidate. But his comment was not helpful or insightful to his team’s campaign.
You raise a good point. What percentage of black folks vote Democrat. What percentage of muslims vote Democrat. If you are going to condemn Burgos for being pro-Christian, then you must do likewise when folks vote based on color or other cultural preferences – yet we all know this happens.
Nice job Mick. it’s Interesting. The loudest voices calling for Tim Hannigan – who as far as I can tell did nothing to warrant the wrath he’s taking – to step aside in his race for Fairfax Party Chairman are the same people who would never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, attack Democrats like they attack fellow Republicans. I’ve witnessed it first hand too many times to count. These people live to devour Republicans that threaten their tiny – very tiny – fiefdoms. If they are elected Republicans, that goes double. Most of them cower in the corner for fear that they might have to stand for something – anything. This is exactly why our Virginia party is in total shambles.
Yep. Haven’t heard a darn thing about Behar from Republicans, but Burgos is horrible and absolutely has to go. Haven’t heard much about the white powder attack on Don Trump, Jr. wife either – we all know it is a crazy Democrat so we don’t even bother to take on the injustice. Very selective in the who and what category. Almost like the injustice of guilty by accusation but not quite there.
Mick, it was a pleasure reading a well written and well reasoned essay. Tim Hannigan and his plan to turn around a very dysfunctional FCRC is our only hope of winning again in Fairfax.
Spot on, Mick.
TBE doubles down on their #NeverTrump agenda by helping RPV leadership in their ugly quest to purge the Party of Trump supporters. This is a coordinated witch-hunt, no doubt to followed by a kangaroo court at the next SCC meeting.
UNLESS We regular Republicans stand up to our Party leadership. We need to stop eating our own!
*BARF* The RPV disgusting attempted purging of Trump-supporters continues. How horrifically racist of Chairman Whitbeck and Congressman Comstock, both lilly-white BTW, to want to kick off one of the very few MINORITY members of the otherwise lilly-white SCC! Washington Post should look into that angle – how the RPV blathers on how the GOP should be more diverse and reach out to minorities, when they’re chafing at the bit to kick off a 1st generation Latino member, who is such an excellent outreach to the Latino community on behalf of the GOP.
Of course Fredy Burgos’ biggest crime is he’s been an early and outspoken Trump supporter, and #NeverTrump Barbara Comstock HATES that!
There’s nothing anti-semitic about Fredy’s/Chief Justice Jay’s remark – anymore than there’d be to say it’s anti-Amish, anti-Hindu, anti-Buddist, etc. We ARE a Christian nation; that’s a FACT. 52 out of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence were evangelical Christians. A 2014 Pew Research Center study found 70% of adult Americans self-identfied as Christians. These are FACTS; Google it.
LOL Several months ago, a few Party leadership dispicably tried to kick out Fredy by falsely claiming he was a racist, white supremacist. That gambit failed so here’s another attempt to destroy Fredy.
Make no mistake what’s going on here – political correctness is being used as a cover by Party leadership to crush Trump support here in VA.
So Fredy supports Corey Stewart.. Shocker
I write for this blog and I LOVE Trump! Frankly Trump has nothing to do with this and because you frame every local dispute as Trump or NeverTrump, it shows you don’t really have much else you can argue on the merits.
I agree. However, much of the angst is really Tea Party conservatism vs GOPe. The fight still goes on and the names change a bit. President Trump is the VA surrogate for the tea party so any Trump supporter who isn’t politically correct per the GOPe should be summarily banished. So, here we go again.
Chris, thanks for that, was wondering the same thing. What does Trump have to do with this? It’s a discussion about who is the better man for the job of Fx GOP Chair and what did Fredy Burgos say or not say, and should he go or not. Also if those who want Burgos out are the same types who sit back (ala John McCain) while we get trashed by liberals and they do and say nothing.
Certain crazies would be better off not talking about Trump or never Trump, and shut their mouths and do their jobs instead.
Joy Behar trashed Christianity and VP Pence’s faith on national TV. The audience just laughed as did most of the View ladies. She will not be dealt with as she is just a talk show hostess – and a member of the ever wise and compassionate Democrat Party. Since we are perfect Republicans, we are never allowed to make statements like that – it is just not good form old chap.
You are solid Mick. Classy and this is a “Virginia Way” post.
And that is what makes TBE and Jeanine Martin and Steve Albertson such a pleasure to read and write for. Great writers like yourself Mick. And that anyone is welcome to comment, provided they’re respectful. Unlike the other VA blog which demands that you walk in lock step with them or your opinions are openly not wanted.
I’d go to the other blog and offer a few opinions – but have been told by the people running that website that I was not welcome to comment on their blog after blasting one of the writers for “being a proud member of the GOP establishment” and saying that “the only problem with the Republican party is we need to get rid of all conservatives”.
So quite frankly, there is nothing of value to read in that other Va politics website.
Mick – thank you for being a voice of reason in this issue. I don’t know much about Fairfax GOP politics anymore – but the whole thing seemed like a bit of a witch hunt to me to try and get Hannigan to stand down. I read you quite often, and this is the best piece you have written. That’s the style!!!
Witch hunts seem to be in vogue. But remember they didn’t end well in Salem.
I have no interest in this race – other than how it pertains to the rest of the state. Whoever wins is immaterial, other than we should all want the best candidate to win. And if that is Mr. Hannigan’s opponent – then I hope he wins. All I’m saying is that BD is not a reliable source of news in Va politics. And the editors of BD are establishment hacks.
I am not a big fan of the PC police. There are a number of identity politics words that would have had Burgos being lauded. Substitute combinations of words like Muslim, gay, transgender, woman, socialist, etc. and the result is quite different.
I agree that BD went full establishment and it cost them credibility. Far too shrill in its anti-Trump commentary.
It’s way beyond NEVER TRUMP. They actually honestly state that Dave Brat is the most worthless Congress member of the Virginia delegation. They’ve done so repeatedly. BD would be better off calling themselves a moderate Democrat publication (if such things as moderate Democrats still exist).
I think RINO applies when you go completely mad.
There is this tendency to attack anything attached to Christian and Jew (by the way) as somehow bigoted. Have we not learned from many recent incidents that it is important to get and understand the full story? I don’t know Burgos and I don’t know his history so I have no specific personal stake in things like this. Identify politics, however, has led us to a very nasty place, and intolerance of foolish comments is something that the founders would not have appreciated as they want a fully open dialogue so that the best ideas could be sorted out.
I’ve looked around the Internets, and have yet to find the comment he made, IN ITS ORIGINAL CONTEXT. You can pick out words any way you want to, twist their meaning, and accuse accordingly. Kind of like quoting only the second half of Luke 20:63
‘Jesus mocked him, and smote him.’, leaving off the previous words, ‘And the men that held’. Yep: it’s a direct quote, it just omits the meaning. Could thus be what’s happening with Fredy?
Once again, Mick Staton proves his is a voice of reason.
Very well said, Mick. Spoken like a thoughtful adult. Virginia Republicans need a fresh wind blowing through our ranks and organizations if we have any hope of recovering from electoral losses. Time to disband the firing squad and get to work rebuilding the Party, for the good of the Party.
Anybody want to go to Bearing Drift now and listen to Old_Redneck and MD Russ?
Interesting point. Bearing Drift became so anti-Trump that it was embarrassing posting there. I liked some of the guys, but you are correct about MD Russ. This site has to be careful as there are a number of people who are playing the same game as he.
Yeah, I remember you, Downstater, and Mark Jawz, and a few others there as well. There were some good times, but then it just went downhill.
It’s fun.
I didn’t realize Bearing Drift was still a thing. Didn’t Ray Allen take his business to Shaun’s new blog?
Ive been to Republican Standard some, but so few comment there that dialogues are never established. I have not been back to BD in a while – too many Alinsky-type commenters who probably would feel more at home at Blue Virginia. If it ceased existing, I wouldn’t know.
The BD format has been changed and it isn’t comment friendly. Good to see you here.
Since JR, SVK and Schoeneman left, BD has become Anti-Trump Lynn Mitchells Anti-GOP Blue BD. TRS is ok, its guns out for democrats all of the time.